


You Cannot Fold a Flood

by the_rck



Series: Not Ready to Swallow Oblivion [8]
Category: Sky High (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dark, Becoming what you hate, Cycle of Abuse, Emotional Manipulation, Lima Syndrome, Multi, Reaping What You Sow, Revenge, Stockholm Syndrome, Supervillains, Trauma, Unreliable Narrator, turning the tables, victim pretending it's consensual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-07-11 04:01:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 10
Words: 22,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15964253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_rck/pseuds/the_rck
Summary: Warren had managed the calculus to realize that his mother had to die.Layla didn’t understand why he hadn’t done the math and killed Layla, too. He could have. Well, he could have tried. He might have succeeded. Layla’d believed that Warren loved the kids, both the Homecoming kids and his younger sister, but she hadn’t believed he actually loved anyone else.He did, though. He did, and unlike the four of them and their feelings about him, his love was unmixed. It was beyond fucked up because everything about Warren was, but it was genuine.Right now, she didn't care, but it might matter later.





	1. Layla Interlude 1: Now That the Fruit Is Plucked

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Emily Dickinson's "You Cannot Put Out a Fire."
> 
> Specific warnings in the notes at the start of each chapter.
> 
> Thanks to Rei for beta reading.
> 
> This fits into more or less the same branch as "Locked with a Twisted Key" but all happens before that begins. If anything referenced in that sounded like something you don't want to read, give this one a pass as it's pretty much people taking revenge on Warren for the things he's done.
> 
> An annotated index to this series can be found on [my writing DW account](https://somethingdarker.dreamwidth.org/65198.html).
> 
> This is a rougher version than I'd hoped to manage, so please excuse the bits that don't fit together quite right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "A Drama of Exile."
> 
> References to past child abuse. References to past emotional abuse. Unhealthy coping mechanisms.

Layla was ready. In terms of power, she’d probably been ready for years. In terms of control, in terms of knowing who she was and what she wanted-- Well, that had come later. She was twenty six, and she’d been listening to the earth for seven years now. The Earth had been listening to her for four. Layla probably could have hurried the last step, but she hadn’t seen any reason to.

Being on Sky High had saved her from being swallowed up. Every time she’d gone groundside in the last few years, she’d had to fight the urge to subsume herself into the planet, to let it absorb her consciousness, her power, and her awareness of self. Layla had spent those years teetering on a tightrope. She had too much power and not enough. 

The Earth wouldn’t have noticed her if she hadn’t reached to become more than she’d been born to be or if she’d reached and failed. As it was--

If she’d taken the slow path to apotheosis while standing on the surface of the Earth, she’d have been diverted into a manageable channel and slowly altered until she no longer remembered being Layla Williams or wanting anything at all. She would’ve had power but no reason to exercise it.

She knew now that the short path-- the doorway-- had been real. It had also been a trap. She’d have achieved apotheosis, yes, but she’d have crystalized herself with a fourteen-year-old’s ideas about the complexity of right and wrong and a fourteen-year-old’s understanding of human interaction. She’d been pretty solid on botany then but really damned wobbly on people.

She’d have burned herself-- and a great many other people-- to ash in a decade. Perhaps a little more, perhaps a little less, but inevitably.

Warren had done her a kindness by not letting her go groundside for so long and then by insisting that her trips be rare and brief. He hadn’t meant it as a kindness, of course. It had been one of the things he could do to show he still had power over her. She suspected he’d understood by the end of the first year after Homecoming that any power he had was only because she gave it to him.

She just hadn’t realized until recently that he’d known. Mostly because she hadn’t let herself know. She and Warren had that in common-- what they didn’t know, they didn’t have to act on.

Warren had to have seen what she’d become. There was no logic, otherwise, in his never having pushed her to show off her powers after his mother was safely dead. Keeping her hidden only made sense if he was either protecting her because she was weak or accepting her wishes because she was powerful.

Layla hadn’t thought Warren was afraid of her. He never gave her any hint. She only figured out, after she took him down, that that was because Warren had grown up with the absolute necessity of hiding his fear from the person closest to him, the person he had had to depend on for everything. Sylvia had probably yanked that fear out of his mind, over and over, without realizing that doing that only created a deeper terror.

A deeper terror that Warren couldn’t admit existed, not even to himself.

But Warren had managed the calculus to realize that his mother had to die. 

Given that, Layla didn’t understand why he hadn’t done the math and killed Layla, too. He could have. Well, he could have tried. He might have succeeded. 

Layla’d believed that Warren loved the kids, both the Homecoming kids and his younger sister, but she hadn’t believed he actually loved anyone else.

He did, though. He did, and unlike the four of them and their feelings about him, his love was unmixed. It was beyond fucked up because everything about Warren was, but it was genuine.

Right now, she didn't care, but it might matter later.


	2. Warren 1: The Irreversibility of Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warren wasn’t really surprised when he felt vines creeping up his legs. He’d been expecting them for years, and it was almost a relief to have the waiting over. He still had a hard time not sparking into flame.
> 
> Layla pretty certainly had a way to keep Warren’s fire from harming her or helping him, and Warren didn’t want to make her any angrier at him than she already was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Victoria Chang's "OBIT."
> 
> Dubious consent. (Warren thinks he does. Layla thinks he can’t.) Misuse of superpowers. Plants as sex toys. Torture. Stolen powers. Layla going full-on villain.

Warren wasn’t really surprised when he felt vines creeping up his legs. He’d been expecting them for years, and it was almost a relief to have the waiting over. He still had a hard time not sparking into flame.

Layla pretty certainly had a way to keep Warren’s fire from harming her or helping him, and Warren didn’t want to make her any angrier at him than she already was.

He inhaled deeply and forced his muscles to relax.

Layla didn’t turn from the plant she was repotting. “I thought you’d fight,” she said mildly.

Warren hoped she wasn’t disappointed. “It’s been too late for that for years.” He thought she had to know as much. He let his knees bend. If he was going to end up on the greenhouse floor, he’d prefer to get there on his own.

The vines let him kneel but climbed his body and pulled his wrists to the small of his back. He tugged minutely against them and wasn’t surprised to find that he couldn’t move more than a millimeter or two.

Layla made a slight clicking sound with her tongue that Warren recognized as her acknowledging a point. “I should have realized.” She finally turned to look at him. “I’m a different sort of monster than you are.” Her eyes had the green fire that Warren associated with her powers escaping her control, but this time, it wasn’t just green burning inside her. She turned one of her soil-stained hands palm upward, and it ignited with a flame that looked very familiar to Warren.

He closed his eyes and counted to three as he inhaled. “I’d rather not die,” he said.

“That matters. A little.” She closed her hand into a fist, extinguishing the flames. “If you wanted it, maybe I could do it, but you don’t, and I can’t. That means-- I don’t think you’re going to like the next part.”

Warren was pretty sure she was right. “Will it get better?” He didn’t know. He’d never managed to get past wishful thinking when it came to what Layla would decide.

“I don’t know.”

Realizing that she really didn’t know felt like falling. He’d been counting on her knowing.

“You broke us all, Warren.” Layla came to stand next to him. She rubbed a dirty thumb across his cheek. “Blood on every shard. All four of us want to see you bleed, too.” She pressed her hand against the cheek she’d stroked. “I thought about putting you in the girls’ locker room.”

Warren swallowed hard. He fixed his eyes on her face.

“Then I realized that a lock would be kind. A lock makes living-- and surrendering-- not a choice.”

“None of you wanted to die.” He knew it wasn’t true.

Magenta had very specifically asked to.

She laughed. “All of us did at one time or another. We just didn’t want the pain that would go with it.”

“I--” Warren had to force himself not to pull back. “I couldn’t let you go.” Doing that would have broken him. “I’m not sure-- I couldn’t-- can’t-- won’t be able to-- do what you did. After you tried to escape, I mean. I’ve never understood how you didn’t kill us all.” He didn’t want to fight her or the other three, but his self-control wouldn’t stand up to terror and pain.

“I’m not making you do that,” she told him. “Try to spark.”

He tried and couldn’t find any trace of fire in his body. His throat closed. He couldn’t even form words to ask her what she’d done. After several seconds, he managed to say, “That makes it not really a choice.” He wasn’t sure who he was without fire. 

“I’ll give it back sometimes.” She smiled at him in a way that managed to be both gentle and cutting.

Warren was pretty sure he was bleeding to death already. 

“It’s just…” she went on with a more distant expression. “We have so many unpleasant memories about you and fire.” She stepped back. “You’re an early birthday present for Magenta. I want you wrecked before she sees you. I… I’d have waited, but Ethan and Zach both being away tonight makes it easier.”

Warren’s breath caught. He understood pretty clearly what Magenta could-- would-- do to him.

“You can make as much noise as you need to.” Her tone said that she considered that a mercy. “Well, sometimes. You’re not going to be able to get screams out all of the time.” She hesitated for a moment. “We might let you enjoy some of it.” She stepped back. “I’m going to wash. Try to escape while I’m gone. Try until you can’t move any more.” Her words were iron-hard and bitter.

Warren felt cold for the first time in years. He gave himself five seconds after Layla turned away before he started to struggle. He expected the thorns; he didn’t expect acidic sap. He should have. His shirt was gone by the time Layla came back, and his jeans had holes where the sap had eaten the denim. He had burns and gashes on his arms and torso.

“Stop moving,” she said.

He froze. His breath came in ragged gasps, and he couldn’t stop trembling. “Layla--” He wanted to beg. He wanted to promise obedience.

He’d known for a long time that he’d give Layla anything she wanted when she demanded it. He just hadn’t really thought about how terrifying it would be when he couldn’t say no, when she didn’t even ask.

“Hush.” The word sounded gentle. “I wasn’t sure you would, that you could.”

He looked at the floor.

“I’m pleased. It won’t help right now, but I’m pleased.” She settled on the floor next to him and used one hand to turn his head toward her. Her other hand ran over his torso, pressing lightly on the acid burns.

He supposed she must be immune.

“You won’t scar,” she said. “I did that, too. I won’t work that deep for most things. Shifting molecules takes focus if I’m being careful enough to avoid long term… problems. I practiced these changes so I can do them fast.” She snapped her fingers, and he felt heat and fire in his body.

He barely had time for an unsteady breath before she took his power again, but he’d had it long enough that he could have tried to fight. 

Her expression told him that she knew he’d made a choice not to. “You’re a damned fool, Warren.”

He nodded because she wasn’t wrong. “I… couldn’t,” he told her. “I’d die for any of you, and--” He shook his head because there weren’t even words. He had underestimated her power again. He’d thought that his guesses about how bad things could be were close, but he hadn’t been anywhere near afraid enough. He tried to meet her eyes and couldn’t. He shuddered.

She leaned in and kissed him.

He parted his lips and gave her a small whimper of want because he still craved her touch and her presence. He’d burn the world to keep her safe, to keep any of them safe.

They didn’t want that. They’d never wanted that.

When she pulled back, she cupped his cheek with her right hand and shook her head. 

“I always have been a fool.” His voice shook. He needed her to believe in his sincerity. “For you and the other three.” He leaned his head against her hand.

“Even with this?”

He was pretty sure that his answer wasn’t going to make a difference in terms of what was coming, but he considered it for a moment. “I’ve always accepted what I can get from the four of you as enough.” He thought she’d understand that he wasn’t lying. “I… I haven’t got anything else. If I did, I’d have given it to you all a long time ago.”

“You could have had. Just not with us.”

It took him several seconds to understand that Layla meant he could have had a relationship with someone else, someone he hadn’t hurt as profoundly as he’d hurt her and the other three. He thought of his parents. He thought of his father and Gwen. He thought of the various men and women who’d tried to tempt him over the years. “I couldn’t. I don’t know why, but--” He shook his head. “At least all five of us knew what the others expected. You knew all the important things about me-- the real and important things-- before we ever kissed. I never wanted anything else.”

She didn’t answer him for a moment. Then, she only shook her head.

He thought she understood. She didn’t like it or approve, but she understood.

She touched the waistband of his jeans, and the fibers started separating. One after another, the metal bits dropped to the floor.

After a moment, all he had left was his shoes, socks, and boxers. He was pretty sure those were going to be gone soon, too. He thought that the only reason the process had taken as long as it had was that she was trying to frighten him.

She was succeeding.

His heart hammered, and he felt like he was inhaling through a pillow. Something in his abdomen tightened and twisted. He made himself meet her eyes.

She flicked her fingers at him, and his remaining clothing disintegrated. “There’s nothing I couldn’t do.”

From the way she said it, Warren guessed that she found the prospect arousing and that she was surprised that she did. He bowed his head in acknowledgment of his helplessness. “As it pleases you,” he said. It was all he had left to give her.

“Yes.” She laughed. “I like you this way.” She pinched one of his nipples and twisted it. “I was expecting horror and disbelief, but this is better.”

He whined at the pain, and she laughed again.

“What’s the biggest thing you’ve ever had in your ass?”

He felt one of Layla’s vines creeping into the crack of his ass. He shook his head and didn’t even try to answer. He kept his eyes on her face and let her see him shudder as the tip of the thing forced its way into his body. Then, pain tore a scream from him as the vine started releasing its acid sap. He kept screaming for several seconds then settled into a quieter sobbing.

Layla looked slightly disappointed, and fear of what she might do next ran through Warren’s body like an electric current. 

He had to fight to keep still. Part of his mind wanted desperately to figure out what she really wanted so that he could give it to her; the rest of him knew that this was exactly what she wanted.

The vine in his ass thickened and twisted, driving deeper.

Warren gasped and tried to pull away.

“Still,” Layla told him.

He closed his eyes and nodded. Then, he forced himself back into the position he’d been in before. He felt tears running down his face. “Layla--”

“You’re really beautiful like this,” she said. “The tears and the sounds you can’t keep in. I can feel what the plant is doing. I just-- You have a damned fine ass, and I want to see it split open, see it with my own eyes, but that means not seeing your face.”

He understood just enough of what she was saying to realize that she wasn’t angry about anything he was doing or not doing right then.

The vine in his ass thickened again. The vines wrapping his limbs pulled him abruptly upright, and he screamed again as the joints in his arms took his full weight for a few moments.

Layla stood and ran her hand over his stomach before pressing hard against the bulge caused by the vine. “You’ll heal,” she said.

Then, the vine started fucking him. It pulled almost out then drove in deep enough that a distant part of his mind knew that, without the healing Layla promised, this would kill him.

He was too busy screaming to take comfort in the likelihood that he’d survive, and he strained against the vines that held him because the agony was too much for him to care that Layla wanted him still. He felt her hands on his ass and her clothed body pressed up against his naked one.

She kissed him as if she could devour his screams.

He tried very hard to focus on her and on what would please her, but the pain swallowed all of that.

Her right hand stayed on his ass while her left pressed hard into his gut, meeting every thrust from the vine inside him.

He wasn’t sure, after, how long the pounding continued. He just felt relief and gratitude when the vine inside him stilled and those holding his limbs lowered him to the floor again. He lay there and cried while Layla stroked his head and told him he was beautiful. He knew that the brutal fucking could-- certainly would-- start again any time, so he was happy when she stripped and told him to get her off.

She was wet and so aroused that he barely had to do anything before her legs tightened around his ears and she groaned. When her body relaxed, she didn’t tell him to stop, so he kept his tongue and lips working.

He could pretend that this part was normal, so he was more than half hard by the time she orgasmed a second time. He didn’t even try to sit up until she half-gasped, “Enough.” Part of that was not being sure what she wanted, and part of that was knowing that sitting up would mean admitting that he still had something very large and very hard lodged in his ass.

She left him sprawled on the floor and circled him. The vines writhed out of her way as she passed without giving Warren even an instant when he could have chosen to move. She bent and ran her fingers around part of his aching and distended asshole. “I do like that,” she murmured, sounding as if she’d been given a great gift. “I thought I’d like seeing you stretched beyond bearing.” She laughed softly.

Warren’s shoulders twitched. He felt like he ought to respond verbally, but he couldn’t think of anything worth saying. He wanted this respite to continue. He wanted things to be the way they’d been yesterday. He wanted very, very badly to please her.

He didn’t want to tell her that it wasn’t beyond bearing, not right at the moment. If he said it, she’d very likely see how much further she could push things.

“Magenta thinks that hurting you the way she wants to will separate her from us,” Layla said. “I think she forgets that all of us want to. She thinks that it’s something we got over because we’re better people than she is.”

The vine in Warren’s ass shifted as if it was a stick that Layla was spinning. For several moments, all Warren could do was make pathetic noises, protesting the renewed pain. His hands tried desperately to dig into the floor as the rest of his body tried to pull in six different directions, all of them _away_.

Then the vine stopped again. “Does this part get you hard, Warren?” There was mockery in Layla’s question, so he was pretty sure she knew the answer.

He was also pretty sure that there was worse yet to come.


	3. Magenta: Water Pouring Through Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warren opened his eyes and looked at her. He looked terrified but determined.
> 
> Magenta inhaled sharply as she realized that that determination was Warren still trying to hold onto them.
> 
> He’d crawl if that was the only way he could keep them. That was why he’d repeatedly and willingly walked into Layla’s domain. He’d known something like this was inevitable, and he’d accepted it as the price of something he wouldn’t give up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Rodney Jones' "The Watergate."
> 
> Internal monologue about the possibility of choosing to become pregnant. Lack of consent from the potential father. Objectification.

Magenta shifted the basket she carried from one arm to the other as she crossed the lawn. The two bottles of wine unbalanced things more than a little, but she didn’t regret bringing them. She also had fresh pumpernickel and a selection of cheese and of crudités. She’d brought some buffalo jerky for herself because she did better these days with a bit of red meat.

Layla was less likely to refuse to kiss Magenta over jerky on her breath than over braunschweiger. Which was kind of sad because the pumpernickel would be spectacular with braunschweiger.

Zach only tolerated braunschweiger in his kitchen because it was for Magenta. He kept trying to talk her into something that was all beef liver or chicken liver or even duck liver.

Magenta thought that duck liver was a little too decadent, even for a major villain’s top lieutenants. And Warren wasn’t a major villain, not yet. He’d make himself one when he had to, when his father’s shadow no longer protected him and his, but he didn’t actually have ambition that way.

Layla had asked Magenta to come to the greenhouses at dusk, so Magenta headed that way as the sun went down. Layla hadn’t specified where in the complex which usually meant she was talking about her locked space where no one but the five of them were ever allowed.

Warren always looked like he knew he was taking his life in his hands when he went inside. He did it anyway when Layla invited him, and probably the other three didn’t see it, but Magenta had walked with Warren into a lot of places where he thought he might die. He’d gotten less nervous about the others, but some part of his warped brain knew that the greenhouse had gotten more dangerous as years passed rather than less.

Magenta stopped at the door and knocked. Usually, the door opened when Magenta approached, so she was a little puzzled. The door would normally open even when Layla wasn’t there. Layla’s plants would let Magenta or Ethan or Zach in any time, and Magenta knew that, if any of the three of them were ever running to escape Warren, the plants in that greenhouse would make sure that Warren lost the ensuing fight. Layla never actually said it, but all three of them knew.

Warren probably knew, too.

Magenta had no idea why Warren ever went near the place. He was usually better at avoiding unnecessary risks than that. He didn’t get off on taking chances.

She’d have said ‘on playing with fire,’ but really, he did get off on that.

Layla opened the door about thirty seconds after Magenta knocked. She looked both disheveled and incredibly pleased with herself. “Good. I was thinking I’d have to remind you.” She smiled. “And I was getting hungry. I don’t want to leave this… project unsupervised long enough to get anything.”

Magenta smiled back. She knew that Layla had some things in the greenhouse that would work for calories when a project needed careful attention. It just wasn’t _good_ food, not anything that anyone would consider a go-to for pleasurable eating.

Zach kept track of that stuff so that Layla didn’t end up with nothing in the cupboard but rancid almonds. Layla could probably make them not be rancid, but she let Zach keep replacing them because they all knew it was his way to say ‘I love you’.

For that matter, Layla could photosynthesize if she had to or devour micro-organisms as if she were a whale eating krill. She didn’t like to because it came too close to admitting that she’d transcended humanity. Layla saw that coming; they all did. There weren’t too many places to go now that wouldn’t cross that line, somehow.

Magenta hoped Layla understood that, when or if she took that inevitable step, the other three would be there beside her, walking as if they could do everything she could.

They’d manage it somehow. They’d survived all these years with Warren.

The plants in the greenhouse changed every time Magenta visited, so she wasn’t entirely surprised that she couldn’t see very far. There were large leaves and fronds everywhere she looked. She smelled blood before she saw anything. She trusted Layla completely, so she didn’t change shape or reach for a knife the way she would have if she’d smelled blood elsewhere on the island. She just let her nose twitch visibly.

Layla laughed. “It’s good,” she said. “I promise. At least… I wanted something special for your birthday. Something no one else could give you.”

Magenta laughed, too, because Layla sounded eager for Magenta to be pleased.

Layla extended an arm, and the leaves pulled back to reveal Warren on the floor. His limbs were at awkward angles, bound by vines. Another vine gagged him, and there was a thing Magenta thought was too large to call a vine that looked like it was in his ass. The blood Magenta had smelled was definitely Warren’s. He had welts and bruises, and he sprawled as if he’d given up all hope of fighting.

Magenta wondered how long that had taken. She set down the basket she carried. “Wow. You go all out to make a girl feel special.” It had been years since other people’s blood and pain made her react at all.

Well, usually, she’d react lethally to Warren’s blood and pain, but that was about protecting the people she actually loved.

Layla put an arm around Magenta and squeezed lightly. “It seemed like the right way to start. Giving you something, that is.”

Magenta spent several minutes giving Layla the kiss she so obviously deserved. She could see Warren’s face, so she knew he was watching. She was pretty sure that all he cared about right then was that nothing was happening to him. She wasn’t sure at all about how she felt about the next part. She wanted what Layla was offering very, very badly, but she also wanted time to think.

Layla pulled back eventually and said, “I thought you’d--” She shook her head. “I wanted to, too, and I thought you might not believe me if I… hadn’t already.”

Magenta would have hoped that Layla was wrong and didn’t actually want to torture anyone, not even Warren, because her wanting to meant that she was stepping beyond necessary murders. Apart from Layla, no one Magenta cared about was at risk from that change, but Magenta thought that Layla had avoided the irrevocable final steps because she was happier as she was.

Magenta turned her attention to Warren again. “He looks pretty thoroughly wrecked.”

Warren closed his eyes.

Magenta was pretty sure he was remembering that she thought about using her knives to get to know his body more… intimately. “Hey, asshole. Look at me. Do you have anything left to keep me interested?”

He opened his eyes and looked at her. He looked terrified but determined.

Magenta inhaled sharply as she realized that that determination was Warren still trying to hold onto them.

He’d crawl if that was the only way he could keep them. That was why he’d repeatedly and willingly walked into Layla’s domain. He’d known something like this was inevitable, and he’d accepted it as the price of something he wouldn’t give up.

Warren’s jaw worked, and Magenta thought he was trying to force out the gag.

“Layla doesn’t do half-measures,” Magenta told him. She considered what she was seeing.

Warren didn’t think he was going to die. Given everything, that had to mean that Layla had promised he wouldn’t which also meant that Layla was healing him because it didn’t look like Layla had been exercising any self-control.

“I didn’t really expect,” Layla said softly, “that I’d find him being helpless quite so _hot_. He just has to take whatever we decide we want.”

Magenta snorted. “Why is he not on fire?”

“I took that,” Layla said. She didn’t elaborate, and Magenta wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Layla’s fingers twitched. “I only gagged him because I didn’t want him giving away the surprise. He’s good with his mouth, and I’m pretty sure he’d adore getting you off. If you want.”

Magenta was a little surprised, looking at Warren, to realize that he did actually want that. She supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised. He’d always wanted to touch her the ways she let Layla and Ethan and Zach touch her.

She wasn’t going to lose herself to him if she let him do it now. No. If she _made_ him do it now. “After we eat.” She licked her lips. “I came here for you. He’ll keep.” Magenta nodded at the basket. “I think the cheese will be better if we don’t let it sit too long, and the wine’s chilled. Oh-- Have you given him water? He probably needs it.”

Magenta was nearly certain that Layla hadn’t thought of that. Amateurs often didn’t.

Layla made a sound that managed to be both startled and thoughtful. The vine gagging Warren started to retreat. Layla cupped her right hand, and a wobbling sphere of water formed a little above her palm. “It’ll be easier than trying to find a straw,” she said.

Magenta hadn’t known Layla could do that, so Magenta was damned sure that Warren hadn’t guessed. What else had Layla been hiding?

Layla fed the water to Warren a very little at a time, and Magenta took it as evidence that Layla was showing off. The fact that Layla _could_ do it-- could pull water from the air and hold it without a vessel and then trickle it into Warren’s mouth-- was kind of terrifying. Water had never been alive; it wasn’t even an organic compound.

Warren didn’t try to say anything, just nodded when Layla asked if he wanted more.

Magenta watched to be sure that Layla didn’t give Warren too much too fast, but Layla clearly understood that part of things. She wasn’t trying to make Warren sick. Magenta started laying out the food on a clean bit of workbench and tried to think about what she should do next.

Warren wasn’t just a gift for Magenta. Warren was a question. Layla needed to know how far Magenta would go to support her and how much Magenta trusted her. Torture, rape, and death were the wrong answers. They were what Layla thought she needed to know, but Magenta had already offered that for her lovers.

The right answer-- Magenta knew what it was, and it terrified her because it was a different level of vulnerability. But this was Layla. She always came through, one way or another, and she pretty certainly would understand the trust being offered.

Magenta poured wine for herself and for Layla and started drinking her own. When Layla came to sit next to her, Magenta said, “After we eat, I want to clean him up and see what we’ve got.” She didn’t even glance at Warren. She wasn’t giving him that much consideration as a human being, not any more.

Warren understood her well enough to get that.

Layla nodded and lifted her own glass. “I didn’t let him come. I wanted to be sure he could later.”

Magenta wondered about that. She was pretty sure that Warren hadn’t enjoyed anything Layla had done.

No. Magenta understood. Warren was sufficiently fucked up about the four of them that he probably could get hard if he thought Layla wanted it.

Magenta and Layla talked about a TV show they’d been watching. It was from the 90s but new to them, and they’d avoided spoilers, so they could speculate. They also talked about Ethan’s schedule of field trips and what Zach might bring back from his shopping expedition. They finished one bottle of wine and put the second, unopened, into Layla’s refrigerator.

Warren cried when Layla made the vine pull out of his ass. It wasn’t pretty crying, either, just heaving, smothering sobs.

Magenta might have felt sorry for him, but she’d seen a lot of people cry like that in the last decade. All four of them had, and Warren hadn’t stopped.

Warren might live. Warren might die. Magenta really didn’t care. Well, she did because Layla might think she was fine with killing Warren, but she couldn’t possibly be. Layla didn’t usually see the faces of the people she murdered, and she didn’t torture them deliberately. She generally pretended that it hadn’t happened, that someone else entirely had done it.

Maybe that needed to change. It just shouldn’t be Warren and shouldn’t be like this. Offering Warren to Magenta like this was a question. Layla might not know it was a question, but Magenta’s answer would change everything. It probably mattered, too, that Layla was asking Magenta first rather than Ethan or Zach.

Layla couldn’t think that Magenta disapproved of what she’d done. That would destroy Layla as certainly as Magenta encouraging her cruelty would. The latter would kill every bit of kindness and compassion Layla had, and Layla had always defined herself by those qualities. The former…

If _Magenta_ disapproved, if Magenta gave any indication of thinking that Layla had crossed a moral line, Layla wouldn’t trust herself to make another decision. She’d just make herself a weapon for her three lovers to use.

Magenta hadn’t lived twelve years with Warren in order to lose Layla over shit like this.

Magenta considered it carefully as she washed Warren, as she pretended to be taking her time with her birthday present. Inspecting Warren’s body wasn’t any particular burden; she’d probably have quite liked it if taking care of Layla hadn’t been more pressing.

She really wished that Ethan or Zach or both were there. One of them might see a way forward that she couldn’t. Magenta loved Layla and wanted her whole, and all Magenta could think of was utterly boneheaded-- 

Magenta trusted Layla enough to bring a baby to Sky High. Getting pregnant was generally a lot easier than not. Being pregnant and giving birth would be a gigantic pain in the ass, but she kind of liked babies. Well, she liked kids. Babies usually became kids, given time.

Layla just had to believe that it was something Magenta really, really wanted and had thought was impossible. Layla also had to not realize that Magenta choosing Warren for the father was about giving him a toehold for survival.

Magenta was pretty sure that Warren would know that whatever she said about that was bullshit, that he lacked the qualities she’d consider important in a parent. She was pretty sure, too, that Layla wouldn’t notice. Layla’d grown up with the idea that having parents with stronger, more obvious powers was desirable.

Warren’s powers were strong and profoundly unsubtle. Nevermind that Zach and Ethan were better, more stable human beings whose genetic contributions were very unlikely to produce another Sylvia Peace. 

Magenta really hoped that the four of them could raise a kid with those powers better than Sylvia’s parents had. That was a problem for later. Right now, the problem was Layla.

Layla would understand that Magenta considering pregnancy was trusting Layla’s power and stability, both to protect Magenta and the theoretical child in the short term and to build a world with options better than the ones Magenta had had. Magenta needed Layla to trust herself, and Magenta was pretty sure that enjoying raping Warren wasn’t something Layla liked about herself.

Warren would understand the other part, the toehold-- Magenta would be giving him the barest shadow of protection. None of them were likely to be particularly kind to him, not ever, and she wasn’t offering him a choice about it, but If he was, biologically, the father of Magenta’s child, he’d still be family in a peripheral way that none of them would sever just for revenge.

Ethan would see that immediately and would give her that look that said that he knew what she was doing. He wouldn’t comment or interfere, though. He guarded the remaining scraps of Magenta’s compassion with everything he could muster.

Zach would make the same assumptions that Layla would about powers and genetic desirability. He probably would comment because he’d feel hurt and wouldn’t understand the part about Layla being afraid that they’d stop trusting her. He’d also assume that Layla’d be as reassured if Magenta brought home random orphans for Layla to raise and protect. Zach forgot that Layla had blind spots.

But, really, it would be about Zach assuming that Magenta thought it would be better to have a kid who could throw fireballs than one who could glow. She’d have to rely on Ethan to straighten Zach out on that.

Magenta’s job right now was selling it to Layla. Magenta actually felt good about it and wasn’t sure why because it was a stupid plan.

Then she realized that she really wasn’t angry any more. She didn’t need to be. She’d held that rage so tightly and for so many years that she didn’t quite know what to do without it. She hadn’t ever thought that she’d be able to put it down, not safely, because she couldn’t work for Warren without it, so she hadn’t considered what she’d do.

She didn’t think she ought to let Layla know what an incredible relief it was. Layla would take that as a failure.

If Layla had acted sooner, Magenta might have stopped hurting sooner.


	4. Layla Interlude 2: To Have Halved that Bitter Fruit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "A Drama of Exile."

Layla needed the wine Magenta had brought, and it meant a lot that Magenta put a meal with her ahead of doing anything at all with Warren. Layla’d thought that Magenta wouldn’t want to wait to play because Magenta had spent more than a decade eating and breathing anger toward Warren.

Magenta eyed Warren occasionally during their meal, but she seemed more interested in discussing the show they were currently watching.

If Magenta hadn’t gone wide-eyed and inhaled sharply on seeing Warren, Layla might have thought she’d guessed wrong about Magenta wanting to see Warren helpless.

It took Layla more than ten minutes to figure out that she wasn’t used to Magenta giving anyone full attention when Warren was also in the room. Magenta spent all of her time watching for threats to Warren. And threats from Warren. Magenta trusted that Layla really had rendered Warren harmless.

For Magenta, Warren had always been a distraction from what she cared about. She’d found him attractive, certainly, still did, but Layla was almost certain that Magenta was thinking more about how Warren could please and entertain the two of them than about all of the things the rest of them had always thought she might do when she had freedom to express her rage.

Magenta probably wasn’t going to put a knife into Warren, not unless it was part of amusing someone Magenta loved.

Which made Layla wonder about all of the people Magenta had hurt or killed over the years. She hadn’t enjoyed it. She also hadn’t done it out of any sort of attachment to Warren.

After dinner, Magenta smiled at Layla then leaned in close to kiss her. “Will all three of us fit in the shower?”

Layla laughed. “Chances are. As long as we don’t mind--” She ran her fingers along the side of Magenta’s face.

“You know I like showering with you,” Magenta said, “and me touching Warren is-- Well, you can’t give him to me and ask me to keep my hands off. I thought you… might like seeing that.”

Layla did want to see that. She’d seen Magenta with Zach and Ethan, and she’d seen Warren with Zach and Ethan. She’d enjoyed most of that. Not so much Ethan with Warren because, even if Warren didn’t realize it, Ethan had never lost his awareness of the pain Warren could inflict. Zach and Layla had both learned to put that aside.

They weren’t going to have to any more.


	5. Warren 2: Different Dialects of Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warren hadn’t expected Magenta’s hands to be gentle, but she washed every burn and cut as if he might break. He could tell that he was healing, and she couldn’t possibly have missed it, so she had to know that cleaning the wounds wasn’t necessary.
> 
> He didn’t say anything because he was pretty sure she wasn’t being gentle for his sake. Her attention was mostly on Layla. Warren had watched before as Magenta feigned interest in things that she didn’t particularly care about participating in or even actively didn’t want to do. This wasn’t quite that, but working at hurting him would have distracted her from what she considered actually important.
> 
> Magenta hadn’t thought that Layla would torture him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Andrew Feld's "Late-Breather."
> 
> Discussion of the possibility of pregnancy. References to concerns about infertility. Objectification.

Warren hadn’t expected Magenta’s hands to be gentle, but she washed every burn and cut as if he might break. He could tell that he was healing, and she couldn’t possibly have missed it, so she had to know that cleaning the wounds wasn’t necessary.

He didn’t say anything because he was pretty sure she wasn’t being gentle for his sake. Her attention was mostly on Layla. Warren had watched before as Magenta feigned interest in things that she didn’t particularly care about participating in or even actively didn’t want to do. This wasn’t quite that, but working at hurting him would have distracted her from what she considered actually important.

Magenta hadn’t thought that Layla would torture him.

Warren was pretty sure that she didn’t give a fuck about his pain. No, she probably actually did like that part. She just thought that Layla shouldn’t be a torturer.

The wall of the shower stall was still all that kept Warren upright, but he was starting to feel steadier on his feet. He hoped that meant that whatever internal damage he had was healing. Peritonitis was an ugly way to die. He didn’t say anything and was trying not to move. He wanted to show them that he wasn’t going to fight, that he could be obedient, that he could adapt to whatever they wanted.

He just hadn’t thought about how much it would hurt.

Layla’d bound his wrists with something almost gossamer-light. Warren was pretty certain he could break it and that Layla wanted to see whether or not he would. He hadn’t tried, but it was going to take more than he had to resist the urge when Magenta eventually started in with her knives.

She would, and he’d had a very long time to think about how much that would hurt. She’d been threatening it for a dozen years, and he’d never doubted she was serious.

Magenta ran the washcloth over Warren’s lower abdomen then moved lower to wash his cock and balls. “There are so many possibilities,” she told Layla. “We could do anything.” She kept her eyes on Warren’s face, but every other sense was obviously-- at least to Warren-- focused on Layla.

Warren’s cock started to harden. He reddened and turned his face away. He’d thought a lot about Magenta touching him, voluntarily and sexually. He’d even understood that it might be like this, under her control rather than his. He just hadn’t wanted-- 

No. He’d let it happen. He’d known. He’d chosen.

Magenta laughed. “I’m pretty sure I can find a use for that.”

Warren shuddered in a way that was only part dread.

She pressed her thumb into the slit at the tip of his cock.

Layla laughed. She still sounded kind of manic. That had been coming and going since her vines had first pulled Warren to his knees. “Anything you want.”

“Yeah,” Magenta looked thoughtful. Then a look of near wonder came over her face. “I could--” She shook her head.

It was a masterful performance, and Warren was pretty sure that Layla hadn’t noticed that it was all calculated. 

Magenta turned away from Warren. “Is he fertile?”

Warren went completely still as he tried to figure out what the hell game Magenta was playing.

“Would you like him not to be?” Layla didn’t sound as if she cared either way.

Magenta smiled at both of them then fixed her eyes on Layla. Magenta hesitated, as if trying to find the right words. “We’re not home free yet, but we’re going to be. I wouldn’t-- I couldn’t--” She gave Layla her most astonished and hopeful smile. “I just realized that, if I want to, I could now. I miss having babies around the place.”

Warren hadn’t expected that, and he realized now that he should have. It was the one thing Magenta could offer Layla to show that she believed Layla wasn’t a monster. It was a trust that Magenta would never have offered Warren. It was also something that Layla would believe Magenta wanted, might have wanted for years.

Warren closed his eyes and swallowed a small sound of desire and pain. What he wanted wouldn’t matter on this. He wasn’t sure what he wanted was ever going to matter again. He’d known that would happen.

He’d accepted it years before.

Neither woman so much as glanced at him, but Magenta squeezed Warren’s cock and said, “He’s always wanted to fuck me. He still wants to. It’s just on my terms now.”

Warren kept his eyes closed.

Layla said, “I hadn’t thought about that.”

Warren knew that Layla meant the possibility of a baby. Layla’d certainly thought through the other parts of this.

“I didn’t realize you wanted more kids.” Layla sounded apologetic. “I’m sorry I made you wait.”

Warren opened his eyes. He needed to understand what Magenta was doing and why.

Magenta put her arms around Layla. “I’m twenty-six, not fifty-six, and you had to be really, really ready. Worth waiting.” 

Warren understood from the way she said it that Magenta’d have waited forever because going public was a thing Layla had to be sure about. They couldn’t make the world forget once everyone knew.

Warren wondered how many people were going to die in the next year and how Layla would decide who needed to go. Then he made himself wall that thought away. Barron Battle was definitely going to be on the obituary list, and Warren still had his mother’s orders to stand with his father. Even if Warren still had his powers, he’d die of that, but he couldn’t disobey that order, not if he let himself understand that part of what would happen.

Layla pressed her face against Magenta’s neck. “I thought about kids,” she said very softly in a tone that spoke of well-worn grief. “Before Sylvia Peace died, it seemed like a really bad idea. After… I was afraid I couldn’t. I… didn’t want to know.”

Magenta leaned her head on Layla’s. “You know now, don’t you?”

“It would be selfish,” Layla said. “I thought--” She pulled back and studied Magenta’s face. “What happens to Warren should be the only selfish part of this.”

“Fuck that noise,” Magenta told her. “Good intentions don’t require misery.”

Layla laughed. It sounded thick, as if she’d been crying. Warren supposed Layla might have been. The spray from the shower would hide it, and his eyes weren’t working really well anyway.

“You’re not doing this alone.” Magenta sounded entirely certain. “Not one of us-- not even this shithead--” She dug an elbow into Warren’s gut. “--are going to abandon you when things get rough.”

Warren certainly wouldn’t. If he’d been able to, he’d have been gone years ago. Or his four almost-friends would be dead. He’d bought his one-way ticket to Lima before Homecoming. He’d known, even then, that he was doing it, but he hadn’t understood how much the trip would cost.

If Warren, at fifteen, had understood where he’d be at twenty-seven, he probably would have made different choices. He was glad he hadn’t, but fifteen year old Warren hadn’t loved anyone and would have refused the price.

Layla’s smile only wobbled a little. “I know. I just--”

“We’ve already given up enough,” Magenta said. “This part isn’t about sacrifice. It’s about building big with everything we’ve still got.” 

Warren was pretty sure Magenta didn’t give a flying fuck whether Layla was right or good or wanted to turn the planet into a black hole. All that mattered was that the four of them-- them without him or with him only as an afterthought-- were together for the ride.

Zach would find someone to build them a spaceship if they needed that.

Something in Layla’s expression told Warren that she understood and that it grieved her. 

Magenta pulled Layla in close again. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled into Layla’s hair. “I haven’t got that. Anything for the family, but… I haven’t got what you and Ethan do.”

Layla made a small sound of denial.

“I’m okay with it.” Magenta’d repeated the lie many times over the years. 

All of them pretended they believed her, but even Warren couldn’t persuade himself that it was true.

“We need someone like you _and_ someone like me,” Magenta said. “We need Zach and Ethan, too.” She took a visibly deep breath and started to shake. Warren could see her arms tightening around Layla’s body.

Layla started rubbing Magenta’s back.

Warren’s legs felt rubbery, and he wondered if they’d notice or care if he let himself slide down the wall and sit. Whatever came next was going to be bad, and Layla had already done more to him than he’d ever thought he could bear. He ended up on the tiled floor with his knees pulled to his chest and his head down, listening as Magenta and Layla offered each other comfort that neither was ever going to want to give to him.

***

Forty-five minutes later, Warren was on his back on the floor of Layla’s greenhouse. Vines held his arms spread again. This time, he was lying on a clean sheet because Magenta said she wanted that so that she wouldn’t have to wash his back again.

She also hadn’t brought out her knives or her claws or anything he’d been steeling himself to endure. She simply ran a finger down his breastbone and said, “I don’t have to.” She gave him a smile with teeth. “ _I_ get the complete set. You don’t.”

Warren hadn’t realized that part was a competition. He supposed he should have. 

He opened his mouth to respond, and she said, “No.” She looked up at Layla. “Can you silence him?”

Warren closed his mouth and waited for Layla’s answer. He wanted to know her limits as much as Magenta did.

Layla knelt beside Warren and put her hand on his throat.

He felt something inside him go still and numb. He swallowed and inhaled. Both felt wrong, but he wasn’t going to choke or suffocate. He tried to whimper. No sound came out.

Layla smiled. “Anything else?”

“Just you.” Magenta sounded fond. She pushed a finger into Warren’s gut. “He’ll be fun to play with, but only if we both play.”

The next bit wasn’t physically unpleasant, but Warren didn’t miss the point Magenta was making. As far as she was concerned, Warren wasn’t a participant in what was going on. He was a toy that Magenta and Layla could use to get each other off.

Warren was inside Magenta when they finally let him come. At that point, all he wanted was sleep, but Layla wanted to show off. She and Magenta watched while Layla’s plants fucked him and burned him, while he tried and failed to scream, while he tried and failed to pull free. 

Magenta made a few suggestions of things to try.

Warren figured out later that those were tests for Layla, not just ways to torment him. As far as he could tell, Layla could do anything that she could imagine doing. Magenta pretty obviously thought that was hot as hell.

Warren was pretty occupied with his own agony, but he also thought they were blazingly hot as they fucked each other. Two people he loved getting off on what they were doing to him almost made suffering it easier.

It had to get easier. It had to.

Eventually, they washed him again and let him sleep. They slept, too, holding each other and letting him curl up near their feet.


	6. Ethan: A Swallowed Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I suppose we figure the next steps out once Zach’s home.” Ethan looked down at Warren. “I’m pretty sure he’d have… cooperated without… this.” Ethan didn’t try to hide that Warren on his knees appealed pretty damned powerfully.
> 
> Killing Warren would be cleaner than… what this looked like, but Warren could be useful. He was really good at terrifying people, and he could walk into a lot of places where his-- former-- sidekicks would have to prove their bona fides by murdering people. Everyone already knew that Warren would.
> 
> Ethan watched the muscles ripple in Warren’s back as his shoulders tightened. He wanted to touch Warren’s back and to feel the tremor there. Ethan swallowed hard as he realized that he could. Warren might or might not like it, but he wouldn’t pull away or say no.
> 
> Ethan would never have to feel that ice in his stomach again as he tried to evaluate whether or not Warren expected him to make a move and whether or not what Ethan wanted mattered to Warren right then.
> 
> Of course, it always had mattered to Warren because Warren wanted to forget that his sidekicks hadn’t chosen him. Knowing that hadn’t made the fear less real, though, not for Ethan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Elizabeth-Jane Burnett and Tony Lopez's "Sea Holly."
> 
> I wrote this chapter first, so it is both the longest and the most likely to have fragments left in it of things I had Better Ideas about later on. I've been trying to find them all and bring them into line, but I can't always spot them.
> 
> Contains torture.

Ethan looked down at Warren, studying the curve of the other man’s naked back as Warren knelt with his head bowed. “Is this actually a thing you want?”

Warren started to raise his head, but Magenta said, “No. We all know what he has to say. Making him beg when he has to say it anyway is just cruel.” She met Ethan’s eyes, acknowledging that she was talking about a thing that Warren had forced Ethan to do. She put a hand very gently on Warren’s head. “You made us, Warren, but we also made us, so you don’t get that.” Her tone left ambiguity about whether or not she thought that illusion of agency was something Warren might want.

Ethan nodded. He looked at Layla. “Is he not burning because he’s bent that far already, or is it that he can’t?”

Warren started to laugh. His fingers curled into fists.

Layla turned her back on the three of them and walked over to the window.

“I can’t,” Warren said. “I can’t because she doesn’t want to have to kill me.”

“That’s why he’ll heal now, too, slow but still,” Layla said softly. “I figured out the resonance of that part of Ethan’s power and tweaked it. I could take it back, but I won’t. I don’t have that much mercy.”

There was silence for several seconds because everyone in the room knew that it was cruelty.

Magenta cleared her throat. “That a thing you can give the rest of us? The healing, I mean. I can live with the drawbacks.” She didn’t sound as if the healing surprised her, so Ethan supposed she’d had occasion to notice it the night before.

“Hm? Oh. Yes. I just thought I should ask first. I can do Zach’s power, too. Possibly Warren’s. Not the nuances but maybe the brute force bits. Yours is harder; I haven’t got it yet. Mine… I have no idea. I might manage it eventually. I want to.”

Ethan blinked. “Didn’t know that was something you thought you could do.”

Layla turned and met his eyes. She raised a hand and wriggled the fingers. “It’s all cells,” she told him. “Tweaking human cells isn’t that different from the other things.” She smiled at Ethan and then at Magenta. “I shouldn’t ever be able to, but we all know how that goes.”

She’d tested it on Warren. 

No.

Ethan shook his head as he realized that she’d tested it the way she did everything else-- on herself first.

Layla’s smile twisted a little. “I thought I could afford losing a toe.”

Ethan choked on the urge to ask how many she’d sacrificed before she got it right. If she had his powers, they’d pretty certainly have grown back, so he wouldn’t be able to call her on a lie. Which made sense of her starting with his healing rather than with Zach’s glowing even though Zach’s power probably involved less difficult changes.

Instead, Ethan said, “What do we do with him?” He was pretty sure that the explanations for Warren being naked and looking as utterly wrecked as he did were ugly, so he didn’t ask about that part.

Layla shrugged and turned back to the window. “I’m ready,” she said. There was steel in the words and in her posture.

Ethan had sort of figured that part out. He smiled. “I suppose we figure the next steps out once Zach’s home.” He looked down at Warren. “I’m pretty sure he’d have… cooperated without… this.” Ethan didn’t try to hide that Warren on his knees appealed pretty damned powerfully.

Killing Warren would be cleaner than… what this looked like, but Warren could be useful. He was really good at terrifying people, and he could walk into a lot of places where his-- former-- sidekicks would have to prove their bona fides by murdering people. Everyone already knew that Warren would.

They knew Magenta would, too, but she shouldn’t have to. Not any more. And really, people were more afraid of Warren.

Ethan watched the muscles ripple in Warren’s back as his shoulders tightened. He wanted to touch Warren’s back and to feel the tremor there. Ethan swallowed hard as he realized that he could. Warren might or might not like it, but he wouldn’t pull away or say no.

Ethan would never have to feel that ice in his stomach again as he tried to evaluate whether or not Warren expected him to make a move and whether or not what Ethan wanted mattered to Warren right then.

Of course, it always had mattered to Warren because Warren wanted to forget that his sidekicks hadn’t chosen him. Knowing that hadn’t made the fear less real, though, not for Ethan.

Given where Warren was at the moment, Layla hadn’t ever stopped being afraid, either. Maybe Zach had, but Ethan somehow doubted it.

Ethan bent and ran one hand along Warren’s spine. He felt Warren shiver. “Magenta’s right. You made us. Part of me wants to know how far you’ll go before you struggle.”

Warren went completely still.

“Ethan--” When Ethan looked at Magenta, she shook her head. “Warren’s control is at least as good as yours.”

“I know.” Ethan straightened up. “And he knows I know.”

Layla said, “You haven’t… damaged yourself. Not that way. Please, don’t.” There was real pain in the words, but there was also a thread of hope.

Layla had been afraid that Ethan would tell her she wasn’t allowed to make her choices, that he’d judge her for hurting Warren, for wanting to hurt Warren.

Worse-- for the likelihood that she was going to hurt a lot of other people. For letting herself be the sort of person who would.

She’d started while Ethan was away because she thought he might order her to stop. If he’d done it early enough, she actually would have, even if it meant pruning herself to a bonsai shape.

She didn’t trust him to trust her.

“If you’d chosen not--” He looked at Magenta and then at Layla’s back. “I wasn’t going to push you either way.” Ethan wasn’t going to stop Layla from growing. He wasn’t going to limit her shape. He couldn’t.

Magenta said, “We’d carry you. Without hesitation.” She was talking to both of them.

Layla didn’t respond.

Ethan shrugged. It wouldn’t mean he wasn’t going there anyway. It wouldn’t mean he hadn’t accepted the road.

Neither of them would stop him or think less of him if he wanted to cross this line, but both of them would mourn what he’d be giving up by stepping over. The other option-- if he rejected what Layla had done to Warren, Layla’d take it as him rejecting who-- what-- she was becoming. She expected rejection, but getting it would also break something in her soul because she thought Ethan was the good one, the one with ethics and a moral compass.

Maybe he was all of that or could have been. If he was, it was only because the other three had guarded that in him, because he’d let them. He probably shouldn’t have, but he had because it meant that no one else noticed him. The other three-- and Warren-- had assumed that Ethan was emotionally fragile, traumatized in ways the others weren’t. Letting them go on thinking that had been easier all around, but now--

Ethan met Magenta’s eyes. He thought-- he hoped-- that mourning his ‘fall’ would be the smaller burden for the two women he loved. “I know.” He glanced at Layla who still had her back to them and wondered how many different ethical anchors she’d decided to cut loose. Probably a lot over the years. One at a time. “Can’t let you two bleed so I don’t have to. Pretty sure Zach will agree.”

“I’m sorry,” Layla said. “It just-- I had to. Not the Warren part, but the--” She choked on the words. “I have-- I _am_ the power.” She glanced back, straight at Warren. “If I had to burn someone, it might as well be him.” She inhaled audibly. “He enjoyed parts of last night. Not the point-making parts but other things.”

Ethan didn’t think Layla had used the word ‘burn’ without intending the full freight of it. All four of them remembered the heat and the flame and the agony. And the smell. Ethan still dreamed about the smell which turned ordinary moments into nightmares.

Ethan wondered if Warren had ever noticed that Sky High’s kitchen never grilled meat.

Layla wanted Ethan to remember December of 2005 when he thought about Warren being helpless. The first two weeks of that month were part of what was driving her now.

Which told Ethan how to tell her that he trusted her. At least that would be easy.

Magenta smiled in a way that told Ethan that she, at least, had enjoyed the whole experience. “You’d have liked the look on his face. Different from with the knife to his throat but… a lot like that.”

Warren closed his eyes.

Ethan felt himself starting to get hard, and he kind of hated himself for that. He was going to have to let go of hating himself, if he could, because wanting Warren and hating Warren and loving Warren were too intertwined and too deep in Ethan’s soul.

If Ethan touched Warren now, Ethan was going to be crueler than Warren had been to any of them.

Also, if Ethan wanted to keep his relationships with Layla and Magenta, to be there for them as they’d always been there for him, he would have to accept… this. Part of him really wished that Magenta had let Warren say that it was something he wanted. Ethan would have known it was a lie, but it would have greased the wheels a bit.

He heard his own breath hissing through his teeth. “Knowing the pain’s coming helps a little,” he told Warren. “Not nearly enough.” Ethan remembered. He knew Warren hadn’t understood it in 2005. Maybe now, after the night Warren had probably had, he understood.

Warren’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t respond.

“If you want to be alone with him for a while…” Layla didn’t finish the offer, but Ethan understood.

Ethan shook his head then realized Layla wasn’t looking at him. “Not… yet.” He bent again and took Warren’s chin to force Warren to meet his eyes.

Warren didn’t flinch or resist. Instead, he smiled.

Ethan knew the smile and recognized it as insincere, but Warren was trying. “You want to live, don’t you?”

Warren’s nod was visually imperceptible, but Ethan felt it against his fingers.

“Even like this?”

Warren closed his eyes for a second as if steeling himself. Then he nodded again. “It’s what I do.”

Ethan rubbed his thumb over Warren’s lips.

Warren parted his lips a little. His tongue flickered against Ethan’s thumb.

Ethan pushed his thumb into Warren’s mouth. “How much of last night did he spend screaming?” Ethan might not have noticed Warren’s flinch if they hadn’t been touching, but he’d spent years giving Warren’s tiniest reactions his full attention, so he might have noticed anyway.

Warren’s lips and tongue promised Ethan a hell of a lot more if Ethan would just let them touch other parts of his body. Ethan knew from experience that that part wasn’t a lie, but he was pretty sure that the focus on Warren’s face was. 

Warren didn’t know what came next. Warren didn’t _control_ what came next.

Ethan gave Warren a smile of encouragement. Everybody had to live with what they couldn’t change, with what they weren’t willing to pay the price of changing.

Magenta glanced at Layla. “Not that much.” She gave a single-shoulder shrug. “More because he couldn’t than because he didn’t want to.” She sat down next to Warren and started running her hands over his torso.

Warren made a small noise that wasn’t a protest but also wasn’t anything like encouragement and leaned into Magenta’s touch.

“I really do want to,” Ethan said. He touched Magenta’s hand with the hand that wasn’t working Warren’s mouth. Ethan let himself sigh minutely as Magenta entwined her fingers with his. “Just doesn’t seem fair that Zach isn’t here.”

Layla gave a small huff of laughter. “Warren’s not going anywhere.”

Ethan looked up and saw plants growing in through the window. “Someone’s going to notice _that_.” When Magenta looked at him, he jerked his chin toward Layla and the plants. “They’re going to notice he doesn’t come out. Or acts different when he does.”

“We’ll handle that,” Layla replied. “There aren’t many who won’t bow.”

Ethan moved his hand from Warren’s chin to Warren’s chest and flattened it against Warren’s skin. Ethan hoped that Layla had a plan for Barron Battle because Warren’s father hadn’t gotten less dangerous.

“Slaves are dangerous,” Warren said softly.

Ethan thought that was likely to be the only time Warren acknowledged that they’d never be able to trust him.

Layla turned fully around. “I know, Warren, but I really would much rather you be one than that the rest of us stay that way.”

Warren turned his head toward her. He met her eyes for a fraction of a second then bowed his head.

“There’s status and power in being ours,” Magenta said.

Warren’s flinch told Ethan that the other man understood that that status and power were in no way going to be things Warren controlled. Warren knew that Magenta meant those words as pain for pain, fear for fear.

“We’re attached now,” Ethan said. “Probably forever.” It was as much reassurance as he was likely to offer Warren. None of them were going to abandon him, but all four of them had wanted to. Ethan stroked Warren’s collarbone and tightened his grip on Magenta’s hand. Then, he looked up at Layla and smiled. “You don’t have to be over there.” He made the words as gentle as he could.

She hesitated. “I did-- I could--”

Ethan beckoned. “It’s the four of us. Warts and all.” He held out his hand until she came close enough to take it. “However it goes, you’ve got me.” He glanced at Magenta. “And her. And I can’t even imagine Zach not diving in with us.”

It wasn’t going to matter to any of them what sort of horror Layla became-- if she did, which he doubted she would-- because it would never be the horrors for the horrors’ sake, not like Barron Battle, or because the horrors were easier than doing the right thing, not like Warren. It wouldn’t be petty or selfish or based on whim.

Even if it was, Ethan loved her and loved Magenta. If they went down the road to Hell, he wasn’t letting them go alone.

Layla came and knelt by Ethan so that she, Ethan, and Magenta made three quarters of a circle around Warren. They’d sat that way before, but this felt utterly different because it was them penning Warren in rather than them orbiting him. Layla trailed a hand along Warren’s arm. “Last night was mostly point-making,” she told him, “but--” She shook her head and looked at Ethan.

Ethan took her hand. “Hot?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, he always has been.” Ethan didn’t even glance at Warren, just kept his eyes on Layla’s face.

Magenta squeezed Ethan’s hand, and he squeezed back. “If you want to fuck him or make him blow you, that would be smoking hot. If we can watch, that is.”

They’d all seen the others having sex in various pairings and groupings. Except--

Ethan kept his tone teasing as he said, “Little jealous that Layla got to see you enjoying last night.” He wasn’t sure Magenta’d let Warren touch her, but the way Magenta’d been caressing Warren’s naked body a few moments before made Ethan think that she had, at the very least, touched Warren.

Magenta had already known what Warren’s skin felt like and how he’d respond.

Layla laughed. “It was worth seeing.” She smiled at Magenta. “I hope to see that a lot.”

Magenta looked happier, more relaxed, than Ethan had seen her in years. “I like him not having power. I’ve… thought about it a lot.” 

Ethan looked at Warren and realized that Warren understood the layers under Magenta’s words. “Hands behind your back,” he told Warren.

Warren hesitated for a moment then moved his hands.

Ethan’s suspicion that Layla was having vines bind Warren’s hands was confirmed as Warren made a sound of pain. Warren’s shoulders shifted backward into a position that had to be uncomfortable. 

“Nice,” Ethan said. He glanced at Magenta. “How bad do you want it to be?”

“I want--” She hesitated then nodded firmly. “I want him to hate himself for the parts he enjoys. I want him to get to where he enjoys each thing that amuses us-- even when he hates it at the same time-- and to fight us every step of the way for each. I want him to lose.”

Warren’s eyes widened a little, but Ethan couldn’t believe that any of what Magenta had said was a surprise, so he assumed Warren was trying to play them. Then Warren made a sound that might have been a sob, fidgeted, and let his chin drop to his chest.

“Yes,” Layla crooned. “Yes. We’re just taking.”

Warren shuddered and whispered, “Layla, please-- I’d give--” The negating shake of his head was almost imperceptible.

Ethan was pretty sure that Warren had been going to say that he’d give them anything-- including this-- willingly. Then Warren had admitted that it didn’t matter because none of them gave a fuck about whether or not he was willing. It didn’t matter, and it not mattering was the _point_.

Warren had always wanted them to be willing. He’d wanted it enough that he never really looked at what them not being willing-- at what them letting him suspect they weren’t willing-- would have cost them. Warren had never managed to convince himself that Magenta wouldn’t be pretending, so he’d never tried to touch her that way.

The other three of them weren’t better actors than Magenta was, so Warren had to have chosen not to know.

Ethan watched with horrified fascination as plants grew, climbing Warren’s folded legs. He could see that they weren’t merely vines to bind Warren; the plants were rooting themselves in Warren’s skin and drawing blood. Ethan didn’t want to watch that, but he also realized that Layla was offering some of her worst, just in case Ethan spooked.

“Every root that breaks,” Magenta said, “releases a toxin. It’s… I tried it so I’d know. Worse than a burn but no visible damage.”

So that was why Warren wasn’t struggling. He’d learned that much already. Ethan nodded.

“If you want to play with him,” Layla said, “it’s your call, but I was thinking he shouldn’t get anything out of it but knowing he pleased you. If he did.”

Warren started crying. “I will,” he promised. “Please. I will. Ethan--”

Ethan was pretty sure Warren already knew that there wasn’t mercy coming from Ethan’s corner, either.

The plants started sinking roots in Warren’s balls, climbing toward his cock. Warren jerked back slightly, then screamed and bent so that his face touched Ethan’s leg. Ethan could tell by the pressure that Warren had lost track of what was around him. Warren’s tears made wet spots on Ethans trousers.

Ethan stroked the back of Warren’s head. He didn’t offer any other comfort, partly because he wanted Warren to suffer and partly because Layla and Magenta wanted Warren to suffer. After several seconds, Ethan said pensively, “I didn’t think I’d like that part.” He let his tone make clear that he did. “I should have known you’d be beautiful in pain, Warren.”

Warren made a whimpering sound that was half plea for mercy and half-- Ethan wasn’t sure quite what it was apart from desperation.

“You get one thing you wanted, Warren,” Magenta said. “We’ll keep you; you’ll be ours.” She glanced at Ethan and raised her eyebrows in query. “His mouth seems convenient…?”

“I’m not sure he’s going to notice anything I do or don’t do,” Ethan replied.

“What he notices,” Layla said, “is beside the point.”

It wasn’t actually, and Ethan was pretty sure Layla knew that.

Ethan lifted his leg a fraction of an inch. “Sit up. I want to see your face.”

Warren pressed his face a little harder against Ethan’s leg then slowly pulled himself upright. Warren’s eyes were closed, squeezed shut. His breathing was unsteady.

Ethan stroked the side of Warren’s face then looked down to see what the plants had done.

Most of Warren’s skin was still visible, but Layla’s plants criss-crossed everything up to his waist. There wasn’t a lot of blood, but the green tendrils pulsed in a rhythm that Ethan suspected was Warren’s heartbeat.

Good. Fast and a little erratic meant Warren was scared. He should be.

Ethan flicked a finger against Warren’s cock.

Warren choked on an inhalation but didn’t-- quite-- scream. He gulped air. He seemed to be trying to steady himself.

“If it helps any,” Ethan said, “you’re pleasing me now.” He traced one of the lines of plants along the shaft of Warren’s cock without quite touching it. When Ethan took hold of Warren’s cock, he was careful not to touch the greenery. He made his inhalation audible as he studied how the plants had all met at the tip and combined to force their way into the slit. “Bet that hurts like a son of a bitch.”

Warren glanced at Layla— for permission, Ethan assumed— before nodding.

“He hadn’t thought I could touch him there,” Layla said. She shrugged. “He hadn’t thought I’d kill before I did.” She kissed Warren on the cheek.

Ethan could see the effort it cost Warren not to flinch.

“Poor boy,” Layla said. “You even knew I was coming. Not last night, just in general. I’m surprised you didn’t kill me.”

“I’d have lost.” Warren sounded as if he’d been in a desert for months. “And I’d have lost all four of you.”

“And you’d rather have us like this than not at all?” Ethan had known that Warren loved them as much as he was able, that he needed them desperately. Ethan just had thought Warren had some sense of self-preservation.

Warren flushed and looked at the floor.

Ethan thought that was real. He pressed the tip of his index finger hard against the plants reaching deep into Warren’s cock.

Warren screamed. It was a full, tearing sound that had to be wrecking his throat. Even with Layla and Magenta gripping his arms, Warren must have been exercising incredible self-control in order not to twist away and rip out every root sunk into his flesh.

“Good.” Ethan made the word a gentle croon of approval. He doubted Warren would understand anything beyond the tone, not right then. 

Ethan kept up the pressure, and Warren kept screaming, until Magenta said, “Ethan-- It’s enough.”

Ethan pulled his hand back immediately.

“Less is more, sometimes,” Magenta said. Her expression told Ethan that she was worried about him. “It’s kind of easy to get--” She shook her head and didn’t finish the sentence.

Ethan understood. He put a hand on hers. “I won’t let it make me someone else.” He was vaguely aware of Warren shaking and sobbing, but Magenta was more important. “I was--” He shrugged. “Point making. He’s not going to forget, now, that I will go that far.”

If Warren understood that Ethan-- the man Warren considered ‘the principled one’-- would hurt him and take pleasure in it, he’d never for a moment think that any of the other three wouldn’t.

Ethan pressed his left hand against Warren’s face and ran his thumb over Warren’s cheekbone. “That was very good,” he said. “Thank you for giving me that.” Ethan knew as well as Warren did that Warren hadn’t _given_ anything, not by choice. Ethan was pretty sure that Warren knew that that lack of choice was part of what appealed to all three former sidekicks.

Warren leaned into Ethan’s hand. He didn’t say anything. Shuddering hiccups interrupted the flow of his breath, and he seemed unable to stop trembling.

Ethan kept his touch gentle until Warren calmed a bit. Ethan didn’t particularly care if Warren was happy about the prospect of blowing him, but Ethan did want Warren at a point when Warren had full control of his jaw. Ethan would heal, and Warren understood his situation well enough not to bite deliberately. None of that would make it not hurt if Warren did.

“You’ve gotten me hard,” he told Warren. “Now, you’re going to get me off.”

Warren closed his eyes and nodded.

Ethan leaned in to kiss Warren deeply. When he pulled back, he said, “That’s a thing I know you’re good at.”

Layla snickered, and Magenta actually laughed. 

Ethan gave each of them a look in turn. “Glad I’m amusing.” All three of the others would understand that the offended dignity in his voice was teasing.

“We love you, too,” Magenta told him.

As she spoke, an expression of intense longing flickered across Warren’s face then vanished behind impassivity.

Any one of them could destroy Warren with that. Ethan didn’t think any of them would, but they could.

Ethan fumbled, one handed, with his fly and used his left hand to touch Warren’s face again. “It’s not going to be okay,” he said gently, “but it never was before. There’s only so far we’ll let you fall. Just a little farther than the rest of us did.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Layla look away and then cover her face. He wasn’t sure he could do anything about Layla, not right then.

Each of them gave the others something different. Right now, Layla really needed Zach. Ethan suspected that she couldn’t have started this if Zach had been home, not because Zach would disapprove or try to stop her but because Zach would be entirely honest about what they were all doing. She couldn’t have started it when she was looking at it squarely.

It said something pretty terrible about Layla’s mental balance that she’d managed a night of rape and torture without looking at it squarely. Managed? No, Layla had _enjoyed_ it without quite admitting that it was real. She’d known she would and hoped she wouldn’t.

Magenta had been there so that Layla wouldn’t choose to turn back.

Those were all very Warren things to have done.

Ethan closed his eyes and worked on getting his cock out. He kept his other hand on Warren’s face as Warren bent to get his mouth on Ethan’s cock.

Warren knew what Ethan liked. Warm, wet, a bit of suction, a bit of tongue...

Ethan groaned a little because Warren liked that. Then Ethan realized that what Warren liked didn’t matter any more. Ethan put both hands on Warren’s head and forced it down.

Warren tried to jerk his head back as he started to choke. Then, he stopped resisting Ethan’s hands. He was still choking; he just wasn’t trying to fight. After a few seconds, Warren started sucking again.

Ethan was pretty sure he was going to see more tears streaking Warren’s face. He was almost looking forward to that more than the rest of the blow job.

The toxin from those plant roots really must hurt like ever-living hell.

Ethan tried to draw things out as long as he could, but the knowledge that he had physical power over Warren tipped him over the edge much faster than he expected. “Damn,” he said after he was done. “Definitely doing that again.”

Warren wouldn’t meet Ethan’s eyes after Ethan let him up. He managed to find something to look at that wasn’t Ethan or Magenta or Layla. His shoulders were shaking visibly.

Ethan let himself enjoy all of that for several seconds before he looked at Magenta. “Did you guys feed him?” Ethan could tell they’d cleaned Warren up before Ethan arrived and had probably let him have as much water as he wanted. Warren didn’t look nearly as bad as he would have without water. Ethan suspected that Warren had had some sleep, too, if only because Layla and Magenta obviously had.

But Layla didn’t need to eat, and Magenta sometimes forgot to.

Magenta stood and stretched. When she lowered her arms, she smiled at Ethan. “I was right. That was incredibly hot. You guys stay here. I’ll get food for me and the idiot.” She raised one foot, and Ethan was pretty sure she was going to prod Warren with her toe.

Ethan shook his head minutely and hoped that neither Warren nor Layla noticed.

Magenta’s foot returned to the floor. She gave Ethan a surprisingly gentle and happy smile.

Ethan was pretty sure Magenta was pleased that Ethan had stopped her. No, that he’d _wanted_ to stop her. There was a difference.

Magenta wouldn’t be alone in trying to keep the four of them from crossing certain lines. She strolled past Warren and Layla to the door. She looked over her shoulder at Ethan. “If people ask?”

“Planning session,” he said. “They’re going to pretend they think it’s an orgy because that’s more fun for them to imagine, but they’ll believe planning session.”

Magenta laughed as she opened the door.

Ethan waited until the door closed before he looked at Layla. “How long did it take you to design those?” He gestured at the plants growing from Warren’s skin.

She met his eyes for a fraction of a second then looked away. “I--” She shook her head.

“About thirty seconds,” Warren said softly.

Ethan had sort of thought that Warren would be the one to answer. He also thought that Layla wanted to deny it.

“Magenta really liked it,” Layla said after several seconds. “I thought she would.” She reddened a bit. “I… It was hot.”

All three of them knew she was talking about Warren’s pain as much as Magenta’s response to it.

Ethan nodded. He looked at Warren who had his eyes on his own knees. “Is that a thing you can live with?” He hesitated when Warren didn’t respond. “It may not be a thing you have a choice about, not right now, but we’re going to need to let you walk out that door eventually.”

Ethan suspected that Warren understood that they didn’t actually have to. It was just a simpler path forward than keeping Warren in a cage in Layla’s greenhouse.

Warren closed his eyes. “What do you want me to do? Anything that I _can_.” There was pleading in his voice, and he looked like he was trying to become smaller. “I--” His voice broke.

Ethan stroked Warren’s cheek. “I know, and it’s not something where anything you do now matters.”

Layla put her hand on Warren’s shoulder. I thought… I wanted to be kinder.”

“You didn’t,” Warren said. “I never thought you did.”

“You hoped, didn’t you?” Ethan kept the words gentle.

“It doesn’t matter,” Warren answered. “It was never going to. I didn’t know what she-- what all of you-- would want, but I always knew I’d give it to you. I just thought it would be because I didn’t want to die rather than because--” He shook his head.

Layla was studying Warren’s face. “He didn’t get off on torturing us.”

Ethan ignored the unanswerable question about Layla’s own desires implicit in Layla’s words. “He did.”

Warren’s flinch confirmed Ethan’s guess.

“Not the things you’re thinking of as torture, not the physical things,” Ethan went on. “Just everything apart from that. All the bits that actually broke us. He liked those parts. He also got off on burning other people.” Ethan was sure that Layla hadn’t forgotten how eager Warren was to fuck after every excursion with his father. “He just didn’t bring that part of it home.”

And Layla hadn’t wanted to admit that it was all that level of fucked up. Zach hadn’t looked at it either.

Magenta’d just figured it made Warren more manageable.

“You want to hurt him, too.” Layla sounded astonished, as if the last half an hour hadn’t already proven that.

Ethan considered that. “I want him to know I can,” he said after a moment. “I want him to remember that I have done it, just because I felt like it, so that he never forgets that I might.” He brushed hair back from Warren’s forehead. “I told him once that none of us were ever going to forget.” Ethan met Layla’s eyes. “I didn’t. You only thought you had.”

They both looked at Warren.

“He’s a monster.” Layla’s words sounded clinical.

“He’s _our_ monster,” Ethan replied. He moved his hand along the side of Warren’s face, never losing skin contact. He wanted the other man to understand that Ethan wasn’t abandoning him, that none of the four of them would. “He made us, and he let us make parts of him.”

Warren’s breathing was starting to even out.

Layla shook her head. “Bet he thought it would be safer in here after Magenta left.”

“I only have principles about things I do for people who aren’t you or Magenta or Zach.” Ethan felt Warren move slightly under his hand. “I’d follow any of the three of you into-- Anything.” He put conviction into his voice. “Because you’d do the same for me.”

The plants rooted in Warren’s flesh started to retreat. He bled more as they left than he had when they grew. The pinprick wounds closed slowly. Ethan could see it happening, but the healing was slow with the oldest vanishing about five minutes after they started bleeding.

These days, Ethan’s body wouldn’t register something like that as existing before it was gone. His nerve endings simply wouldn’t bother reporting it to his brain as damage. Ethan was pretty sure that Layla wasn’t going to be that kind to Warren.

Ethan leaned in and kissed Warren. He wasn’t surprised that Warren kissed back or that it felt like a desperate plea for protection.

Warren was still good at people. He knew that Ethan could move Zach and Magenta and that the three of them could leash Layla.

If they wanted to.

Ethan wondered if either Warren or Layla realized that it would be better for Layla if the three of them did. When Ethan pulled back, he rubbed his thumb over Warren’s lips and said, “Yeah, but it won’t help you much.”

Warren didn’t look surprised, but he did look frightened. “I won’t--” He stopped when Ethan shook his head.

“You don’t have better options.”

Warren looked at the floor for a moment. “I could have had.” He glanced at Layla before returning his focus to Ethan’s face.

Ethan considered that for several seconds. He shrugged with one shoulder. “Then you saw this coming and let it happen.”

“I got twelve good years.” Warren swallowed visibly.

“They weren’t that good for the rest of us,” Layla said flatly.

Ethan looked at her. “Worse for you and Magenta than for me and Zach.” It was a simple acknowledgement of truth. He pressed his lips together for a moment as he gathered his courage to ask. “How many powers have you copied?”

The look she gave him told him that she’d hoped he wouldn’t ask. Her shoulders came up near her ears; then she shook the tension out. “Only some of them work right.” Her smile was overly bright. “Your healing fixes things when that goes wrong.”

Ethan gave her a flat look. “Until it doesn’t. No more testing on yourself.”

Warren moved minutely, and Ethan guessed that he knew who Ethan was nominating as test subject.

Not as guinea pig. Magenta would never forgive them.

Layla didn’t look happy.

Ethan thought that Warren ought to take some comfort in that. Layla was angry, but she still didn’t want to kill him by breaking his body one cell at a time. Ethan sighed. “Pretty sure there’re six dozen people I can list without even thinking who’d deserve every bit. The supply of dangerous assholes doesn’t tend to get smaller.”

“It will,” she said. “I thought about that part. I won’t kill anyone I don’t have to.”

“You never do,” Ethan said. He considered telling her about Wayside. He considered stopping providing Wayside with information and not telling Layla. He considered just going on as he had.

Layla would understand small people trying to take care of each other-- it was what had made the four of them what they were-- but she might not understand why those small people wouldn’t see her good intentions and wouldn’t help her.

Would she take Ethan not telling her as a betrayal? Would it be a betrayal?

He sighed. “How’re you handling the data overflow?”

Layla looked relieved. “That’s really what took so long. I can get information from anywhere on the planet, but knowing to ask-- That part isn’t so easy. Right now, I’ve got… um… You might say catastrophe thresholds? Things happening that the plants in an area think aren’t right. Big enough area that I won’t get pings for kids camping, small enough that I will get notice when some unimaginatively named fire powered super starts torching buildings.”

Warren twitched but didn’t say anything.

Ethan suspected that Warren was mentally compartmentalizing so that ‘unimaginatively named’ was a category that couldn’t possibly include Barron Battle.

Warren had to know that trying to protect his father would only end in pain.

If Layla took Barron Battle’s powers but left him alive, someone would kill him three seconds afterward. Barron Battle wasn’t capable of making the sort of pragmatic, calculating decisions about survival that Warren routinely did, so he wouldn’t bow to Layla. No, he would. He just wouldn’t mean it. If he actually understood even half of what she could do, he’d spit in her face so he’d die fast. 

Unless Barron Battle had space travel, he couldn’t escape Layla’s reach. No one currently on Earth could.

Ethan tapped Warren’s knee. Once he had Warren’s attention, Ethan shifted position a little and patted his thigh. Then he held out his hands.

Warren’s jaw and shoulders tensed then released. He nodded and leaned into Ethan’s hands so that Ethan could lower him until he lay on the floor with his head resting on Ethan’s thigh. 

Ethan stroked Warren’s hair and looked at Layla. “As far as Warren goes--” He shrugged. “For the rest of the world, there are actually things I’d rather not do. It’s not like Homecoming.”

Layla didn’t get it at first. Then, she nodded. “Choices. We have choices.”

“The kids are starting to come into powers.” He’d meant to tell her that the moment he’d seen her. Naked Warren had been a bit distracting.

She looked a little startled. After a moment, she narrowed her eyes.

Ethan watched as Layla ran through each step in the chain of logic.

Layla looked at Warren. “The kids think you’re worth something.”

Warren pressed his head a little harder into Ethan’s leg.

“Warren’s good at lying.” Ethan reached down and took Warren’s hands. With them still bound, Ethan could squeeze both. “You are, aren’t you?” He felt desperation in the way that Warren’s fingers gripped his.

“If that’s what you want.” Warren’s words were the barest whisper.

“Require,” Ethan corrected. “‘Want’ is too soft a word. We’ve lied to them about you for years, and so have you. We’re all going to keep lying.”

Some of the kids were smart enough to figure it out eventually, but they wouldn’t be twelve then.

“You’re not going to use any of them against us the way you used us against--” Layla hesitated.

“I don’t think saying it will set off any traps,” Warren said. His voice sounded a little stronger now. “I know what you did. I know what I did.” He squeezed Ethan’s hand harder. “I’d-- I’d do it all again. I don’t see what else I could have done.”

Ethan did see other paths Warren could have taken, but Layla was nodding. “You were trapped,” she said.

Ethan felt a chill.

Warren was trapped again, and the four of them weren’t going to let him find a way out. Twelve good years, Warren had said.

“At least,” Warren said, “I know which parts of this are real.”

Ethan could see that Layla was about to speak, and he shook his head. Telling Warren that she could probably take that, too, was absolutely the wrong thing to say. It would be beyond cruel, and it would guarantee that they’d have to kill him.

Layla hesitated. “I could probably give you things to make you want what’s going to happen anyway.” She looked away. “If you ask, I will.”

Warren didn’t answer or move, so Ethan kept stroking his hair until Magenta came back with a string-bag full of food.

Magenta looked the three of them over when she came into the greenhouse. “He’s not fighting you.”

“I don’t want him to,” Ethan said. He was pretty sure that, if Warren had fought them the night before, it was mostly at the points when they’d gone beyond what he could bear. “He knows that.” Ethan met Magenta’s eyes and saw the change in her expression as she understood. “Now that he knows that Layla can take his fire, he’s going to assume she wants him to use it when she doesn’t take it. He’s going to assume that he’ll lose, but he’s going to assume he’s supposed to fight.”

Magenta shook her head.

Layla said, “Warren, if I don’t take your fire, it will be because I trust your self-control. If I want you to fight, I’ll tell you that.” Each word was clear and distinct. “If you fight without that, I’ll assume that you’ve either lost control or changed your mind about wanting to live.”

“He wouldn’t let me die,” Magenta said.

Ethan snorted. “She didn’t say he’d die. He doesn’t get that.” Ethan wasn’t sure that any of the four of them could bear to kill Warren or to let him kill himself. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

Then again, Magenta had spent a lot of time convincing herself that she could kill Warren if she had to.

Magenta shrugged and sat on the floor. She started pulling food out of the bag. She had a Zip-loc of green, seedless grapes and one of cheese cubes, a sleeve of crackers and a tub of strawberry cream cheese.

Ethan pretended that he didn’t remember that Warren liked grapes and strawberries. If Magenta’d done it accidentally, she’d be beyond pissed about it. If she’d done it as a kindness--

They all knew better than to mention it when Magenta was kind and didn’t have to be.

Ethan told the others about the things that had happened on the field trip while he and Magenta fed Warren. He’d taken eight kids groundside to Machu Picchu.

Layla looked like she wanted to join in on the feeding Warren part, but Ethan shook his head. Warren needed to accept that Ethan and Magenta had power over him even when Layla wasn’t there. Layla frowned then shrugged.

Ethan took that to mean that she didn’t understand but was trusting his judgment until they could talk privately.


	7. Warren 3: Finally Recognize Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warren was wrong about Ethan, too. Warren had guessed that Ethan would go where the others did, but he’d thought that Ethan wouldn’t ever want to touch him again. He hadn’t expected Ethan to look at Layla, draw the same conclusions that Magenta had, and then choose to take pleasure in hurting Warren.
> 
> Ethan trusting Layla looked entirely different than Magenta trusting Layla did.
> 
> Warren could tell that Ethan had guessed right by the releasing tension in Layla’s shoulders. She’d been expecting Ethan to let her damn herself while Ethan kept himself-- technically, only technically-- innocent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Kamilah Aisha Moon's "Recovery."

Warren was wrong about Ethan, too. Warren had guessed that Ethan would go where the others did, but he’d thought that Ethan wouldn’t ever want to touch him again. He hadn’t expected Ethan to look at Layla, draw the same conclusions Magenta had, and then choose to take pleasure in hurting Warren.

Ethan trusting Layla looked entirely different than Magenta trusting Layla did.

Warren could tell that Ethan had guessed right by the releasing tension in Layla’s shoulders. She’d been expecting Ethan to let her damn herself while Ethan kept himself-- technically, only technically-- innocent.

Layla thought it was rape. Ethan thought it was rape. They both thought this was different than it had been when Warren had been in control.

Magenta was quite sure that it wasn’t different.

Warren would have thought that Magenta was right, but he was coming to realize that she’d always thought that anything involving him and the others was rape.

She had to be wrong about last night and today being-- about what Warren had been doing for a dozen years having been-- rape. She also had to be right that it wasn’t different.

****

After Warren and Magenta had eaten, Ethan suggested that Layla go and check on the kids. “The ones who took the field trip are going to want to tell you about it.”

All four of them knew that Ethan was asking Layla to leave for a while. 

Warren was probably going to be safer with Layla outside the greenhouse for a while, but he was a lot less certain about Ethan being kinder than Layla was. Less powerful and therefore less terrifying but probably not kinder.

And Ethan wasn’t asking Magenta to leave.

Layla smiled and stood. “The plants will keep him from leaving.”

All four of them also already knew that.

Warren looked at the floor as Ethan and Magenta also stood and kissed Layla goodbye. He wondered if he’d be allowed to do that any time soon.

Layla ruffled Warren’s hair before she headed out the door. Maybe that meant something; maybe it didn’t. She also released the vine that bound his wrists.

Warren took that as her trusting him not to be completely stupid. He didn’t move his arms. He thought that should wait until he knew what Ethan and Magenta wanted him to do. Layla’s plants weren’t the only things in the place that could be used as restraints.

Out of the corner of his eye, Warren saw Magenta settle to the floor again. “He hasn’t had any privacy since Layla took him down,” she said. Her voice was neutral. “Not even to piss.”

Warren’s shoulders tightened.

Ethan came down to the floor on the other side of Warren. “You trust him for it?”

Warren was pretty sure he wouldn’t if their situations were reversed. Locking four of them in together without spying on them had been different. None of them had been likely to let the others do something suicidal.

Ethan’s fingers brushed Warren’s arm just above the elbow. “You can let your shoulders relax, Warren. You’re pretty like this, but we don’t need that right now.”

Warren forced himself to inhale slowly then nodded and let his hands fall to his sides. He tried not to move otherwise. Magenta and Ethan had both surprised him.

“Use the toilet,” Magenta said. “Wash your face and drink some water. You’ve got four minutes.”

Warren stared at her. He thought she wouldn’t tell him that if Ethan hadn’t already agreed, but Ethan hadn’t said anything. Warren bowed his head and started to lever himself to his feet. His legs didn’t want to hold him, but he didn’t think that was going to persuade them to give him more time.

They’d probably laugh when he fell.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Magenta said as Warren staggered. She was on her feet with one shoulder under his arm in about half a second. “Don’t think it means anything,” she added as she got him moving. 

“I never did,” Warren told her. It was only the truth. “You never lied to me about that.”

She didn’t answer, just walked him around one of Layla’s potting tables three times. Once he was more steady on his feet, she pushed him away. “Four minutes.”

As he started toward the bathroom, Warren glanced at Ethan.

Ethan looked a little startled and very thoughtful.

Magenta had apparently surprised Ethan, too. Warren felt a bit better about not having predicted her reaction. He hoped Ethan wasn’t going to be angry with him about it.

Ethan was holding Magenta and rubbing her back when Warren came back. Ethan met Warren’s eyes with a look that told Warren that what had happened in the last twenty-four hours would be nothing next to what Warren would face if he hurt Magenta again.

Warren nodded to show that he understood then shrugged. Hurting Magenta wasn’t a thing he wanted, wasn’t a thing he’d ever wanted. After a certain point, he hadn’t thought he could. 

Warren hesitated for about two seconds then knelt roughly a yard away from Ethan and Magenta. He studied the floor and waited.

He was pretty sure the floor had been poured concrete when he had the place built. The plumbing and the wiring probably hadn’t changed, but the floor was covered with something that Warren didn’t recognize. It felt a lot like the mats some playgrounds had that were made of tiny pieces of old tires, but it didn’t smell like that or look like that. Warren had walked on it without ever registering the changes, so he wondered when Layla had made them and if it had been all at once or a little at a time.

Even if he had noticed, it would simply have been one more warning Layla gave him and he ignored. He wondered now what she’d hoped he’d do. Given what she’d told Ethan and Magenta, running would have done damn all.

The possibility that she wouldn’t have looked for him hurt more than anything she’d done to his body. If they didn’t want him at least that much, he might as well just--

“Warren--”

Warren gave Ethan his whole attention.

Magenta wasn’t in Ethan’s arms any more. She was looking at Warren appraisingly.

Ethan’s smile offered no sympathy. “We know you’re tired, so the next bit will be a little easier. I’m going to fuck you while you’re inside Magenta.”

That might not hurt. It sounded like it wouldn’t anyway. Warren was pretty sure that wasn’t going to be everything, so he waited without responding.

“After you get me off a few times,” Magenta said. “The other three all say you’re good with your mouth. I want you to prove it.”

Warren nodded. That wasn’t a terrible thing either. Magenta was beautiful and one of the few people he loved. “I would do anything,” he said very quietly. “Well… Try to. Because it’s you.” He swallowed. “I… Even if I didn’t want to anyway-- If I tried to fight you, I’d lose, but that’s-- That’s not why.”

“That?” Ethan said. “That is actual bullshit. Maybe not the trying to do what we want part, just the guaranteed losing part.” Ethan’s eyes narrowed, and-- just for a fraction of a second-- Warren saw very cold calculation in the other man’s expression.

Warren managed not to flinch. His breath hissed between his teeth as he realized he was closer to dying than he’d been in a very, very long time.

“Ethan--” Magenta touched Ethan’s arm. “Don’t. He might change his mind some day, but he’s spent years deciding not to kill Layla to avoid this, just like she spent months deciding not to kill all of us to avoid him. It’s a shitty kind of love, but he’s too damaged to offer better.”

Ethan hesitated then nodded. His eyes met Warren’s and held them. “I will if I have to.” He glanced at Magenta. “We let you carry that too long.”

She shrugged with one shoulder. “I volunteered, so, in a really weird way, did he.”

Warren shouldn’t have been surprised to realize that Magenta cared more about Ethan not killing him than she did about Warren not dying. It hurt. He looked at the floor and hoped she didn’t see that in his face.

“I knew by four years after Homecoming that she wasn’t going to need me.” Warren’s words were the barest whisper. “Destroying her meant destroying you both and Zach which meant letting the kids only have me. They’d destroy me and each other, so I… didn’t. I wasn’t playing to _win_ some fucking contest.”

He didn’t hear any response from the other two, so he raised his eyes. “I got twelve good years.” He had to believe that however many years he had left weren’t going to be that bad. 

Layla would be too busy to spend days torturing him. Eventually. If Layla was busy, the other three would be, too. The time they had for him might contain more focused… unpleasantness, or they might let him-- He might be able to give them something other than his pain.

“I’d follow the four of you anywhere,” Warren said. He hadn’t told Layla that because he’d been pretty sure she wasn’t listening. He thought-- hoped-- Magenta might be. She usually knew when he wasn’t lying. “Even… this.” He scrubbed one hand over his face. “I lose everything if it goes any other way.”

“Over on Layla’s futon,” Magenta said. “Crawl.” Her tone was gentle, but there was iron under the last word.

Warren hadn’t been invited to sit or lie on Layla’s futon before. Even a year after Homecoming, he hadn’t been fool enough to invite himself to anything inside her lair. He’d stood where she said he might, and he’d asked to use her toilet when he really needed to. She’d never offered him a stool or even a bit of floor to sit on.

He’d only ever walked through the door when she gave permission. He hadn’t been that oblivious at any point in his life.

Warren started crawling and hoped that Ethan would decide to be kind.

Ethan and Magenta stood and began taking each other’s clothes off.

Warren wished they’d let him help, but they were making a point about his status. He wasn’t an equal partner. They didn’t want him to be.

They didn’t trust him to be.

Whatever else he’d done, Warren had certainly shattered that.

The futon smelled like grass and damp earth and felt a little like a waterbed when he laid his right hand on it. Warren was almost certain it was alive. His breath came faster as he made the rest of his body follow his hand onto the surface.

He wasn’t afraid. He couldn’t be afraid. There were certainly much more terrible things ahead of him, but he couldn’t let himself crack. He put aside everything except the moment and the need to be obedient. Pain wouldn’t matter. 

Layla wasn’t there, so pleasing Layla wouldn’t matter. If Ethan and Magenta were happy with Warren, Layla’d consider Warren’s behavior good. She’d hurt him anyway, but she’d keep him.

Ethan and Magenta arranged pillows so that Magenta could recline but still see what Warren was doing. Ethan sat next to her. They kissed and caressed each other.

Warren envied both of them. Warren envied all four of them. He wanted the easy trust and affection that the four of them had with each other. He wanted Magenta and Ethan to look at him the way they were looking at each other, the way they’d both look at Layla or at Zach.

He couldn’t pretend any more that that was a thing that might happen.

By the time Magenta opened her legs so that Warren could go down on her, Warren was crying. He still gave her his best efforts and listened carefully to Ethan’s soft suggestions about things Magenta liked.

Ethan and Magenta had to have noticed Warren’s tears, but neither mentioned it. They were both gentle with Warren this time. He was grateful for it because he wasn’t sure how far his self-control would go if they started hurting him as badly Layla had. The two of them together could take him down, if it came to that, as long as he didn’t have his fire, but they’d be really fucking unhappy about having to.

After, when they were all three exhausted, Ethan rubbed Warren’s back while Magenta pulled a sheet over the three of them. It was more kindness than he’d expected. He supposed Ethan was angry at him in a different way than Layla was.

Warren slept. He wasn’t sure, after, if the other two had, but he woke to them talking across him. He kept his eyes closed and his breathing steady. He wasn’t sure it would deceive them, but it might.

“If I get pregnant, it’ll be good,” Magenta said.

Ethan went still for about five seconds. “You really want that?” He didn’t sound actively disbelieving, just as if it was unexpected.

“I like kids. So do the rest of you,” Magenta said. She laughed softly. “Once Layla figures out how to give you and Zach fire, I’m never going downside again. I’ll fight if anyone attacks Sky High, but I’m done. No more fighting for the hell of it. No more people bleeding and screaming just for some asshole’s entertainment.”

Those words hurt worse than Layla’s vines, and Warren didn’t have the release of screaming. He opened his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said. He actually was.

He also wondered if it was that he wasn’t people or that Magenta didn’t consider Layla or Ethan or Zach to be assholes.

“You made me watch everything you did, everything your father’s thugs did.” There wasn’t any forgiveness in Magenta’s words. “You just never once suggested I should participate.” That was softer. Still not forgiveness but understanding. 

Warren had always thought that Magenta understanding would be enough. He forced himself to look at her.

“I’d have been a shit bodyguard if I’d walked away because I didn’t like what you were doing. You needed a bodyguard.” Magenta met Warren’s eyes then looked away. “I’d have-- If you’d expected it, I would have.” Her voice broke a little. “Participating would have destroyed me, but I would have if you’d--” She shook her head.

Warren was a little surprised that she thought he’d have asked her to kill or torture for fun. He supposed he could have. He just didn’t understand why she thought he would have, not when his father wasn’t asking for it. “One of you had to be there,” he said, putting as much apology into it as possible. “And really, it had to be either you or Ethan. Zach would have died. Layla--” He started to shake because Layla was something he wanted to avoid thinking about.

Magenta nodded. “I know. Ethan knows, too. It’s not one of the things I hold against you.”

It would be one of the things the other three held against him.

Warren got his body under control by pushing thoughts of Layla back behind the walls in his mind. The mazes in his head were still good for some things.

“I’m sorry, too,” Ethan told Magenta. “I could have taken some of that, after a year or two anyway, but I--” He shrugged.

After a year or two, once Ethan stopped being terrified in Warren’s presence. 

No, Warren admitted, after Ethan got really good at pretending he’d forgotten what Warren could do to him.

“It would have reminded you,” Magenta said. She reached up and touched Ethan’s arm. “You know I’d do anything for you and Layla and Zach.”

“That’s what I’m worried about,” Ethan told her. “If you want a baby, that’s one thing.”

Warren was pretty sure neither of them gave a damn what he thought about being a father. They probably weren’t going to let him be, not even as much as his father had been. Still-- “I do. I always did.” He looked at the glass ceiling and started counting the support struts so that he wouldn’t have to see their rejection of his right to an opinion. “I like kids, and we could have stayed home for at least a year for it even if it wasn’t genetically mine.”

Ethan’s hand came to rest on Warren’s shoulder at the same moment Magenta said, “Shut up, Warren.” At least she sounded more tired than angry.

Warren tried to make himself smaller, to fold in on himself.

The hand on Warren’s shoulder squeezed then lifted away. “Why him?” Ethan asked. “No, stupid question. It’s the same reason you do everything else.”

Warren thought that was a little unfair. “She hasn’t needed to protect you from me for almost a decade.”

Magenta started to laugh. “It’s not like you got less crazy.”

“I was never crazy that way,” Warren protested. “If I had been, you’d have killed me as soon as you could. You plural.” He’d really understood that by four or five years in. He didn’t look at Ethan. “More likely you than Magenta. More likely Zach than you. Zach had access to everything I ate. Assuming Layla didn’t-- or couldn’t-- do it.”

Ethan made a choked noise that Warren took several seconds to admit was laughter. After a moment, Ethan said, “Magenta wasn’t wrong. You _knew_. That’s fucked up.”

Warren made himself look at Ethan. “Same as usual then.”

“Won’t buy you anything,” Ethan told him.

“I know,” Warren replied. He turned to look at Magenta. He hoped he could figure out a way to get more moments like this and fewer like the hours with Layla. “There were things I could have bought,” Warren told them, “but not a single scrap was worth the price.”

Maybe Magenta and Ethan understanding would help a little. They’d all four had too many years to build up being pissed off at him for anything to help much.


	8. Layla Interlude 3: Count the Petals Lost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "A Drama of Exile."

After Layla left Magenta and Ethan with Warren, she didn’t go to talk to the kids. They weren’t expecting her, and really, they didn’t want to tell her about their adventures. They wanted to tell the kids who’d had to stay behind.

Layla went to the gym. The space was used for storing non-perishables now. Towels and toilet paper and soap and bedding and whatever else a place the size of Sky High might need. Neither locker room was used for anything at all. The boys’ locker room hadn’t been repaired after Warren burned everything inside. The girls’ locker room… Layla thought that only a very few people still on the island knew why that stayed empty. Warren, Layla and her friends, a few of the people who’d been working with the Homecoming kids since the beginning.

Even the first people Zach had hired didn’t really know. Some of them had enough pieces to guess, but the first of those hadn’t arrived until March of 2006. By then, someone had been letting all of them out early every morning. Things had been rough then, so it might just have happened to be where they slept.

Behind a locked door.

It might just have happened that Warren had someone watching all four of them every moment they were outside the locker room.

Layla hadn’t gone back in at least a decade. Now, the door opened easily. The rooms smelled of dust. Layla thought that she remembered Zach having the water turned off in there after Warren melted most of the faucets in the boys’ locker room. Nobody was using water in either locker room, and Warren’s tantrum had created a colossal mess.

They’d treated him like an unstable bomb for years, but he’d taken his tantrums downside after that. The first couple of times, he hadn’t taken Magenta with him, and they’d all been terrified that he’d get himself killed without them having any way to know it had happened, not before it was too late.

Layla shook her head and walked deeper into the locker room. She turned right to enter the shower space. She’d never seen the concrete in there completely dry before. She went to the middle of the room and sat. She wouldn’t say that this was where it started, just that it was where the pieces came together. Nothing ever really started or finished without blurring into other beginnings and ends.

Layla closed her eyes and inhaled.

There wasn’t even a trace of lingering scent to remind her of their imprisonment. No algae or fungus. No sweat. No uncleaned toilets. No bleach. Not even heavy humidity. Just dust and a bit of staleness to the air. She and her friends weren’t there any more.

Ethan’s histories mentioned the girls’ locker room, so someone might find value there later, someone looking to see where Layla and her friends came from. Warren might rate a footnote.

No, he’d get more than that because none of them would be who they were without him and his choices. 

She just wanted him to be nothing.


	9. Zach: And Thick Water to Drink

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zach smiled. “I think each of us had different fantasies about what to do with you. Mine… I just wanted you to be afraid. I wanted you to know what it was like to be trapped and helpless. I’d say that I had that now except I don’t think you actually know it. You’re putting it aside, walling it off, the way you always do with thoughts that will break you.” Zach offered Warren a smile with fangs.
> 
> The wariness in Warren’s posture altered enough for Zach to be sure that Warren had realized that this was a threat he hadn’t foreseen.
> 
> Zach let that sit for almost three minutes. Then, he said, “The first time I kissed you, I had no fucking idea what would come after. No reason to think you’d be gentle or care about me being… okay… during or after. You could have done anything and told me I’d asked for it.” Zach looked at the ceiling. “It would have fit with the shit you’d been doing all along.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Robert Hayden's "The Mirages."
> 
> Non-consensual drug use. Deliberate psychological torture.

Zach had asked for time alone with Warren. He knew Warren well enough to be certain that he wasn’t going to fight Zach. He wasn’t going to fight any of the four of them. He hadn’t even tried to escape or to ask for help.

Not that anyone was left on the island who would back Warren against the rest of them. Well, some of the kids might, and they had more chance of success than anybody else did because even Magenta would give up revenge for them. 

If Warren let the kids see even a hint of his… predicament, he might find a way out. Just being in the room with one of those kids would be a protection against being raped or humiliated or even spoken to harshly. Warren hadn’t gone near the kids, and Zach didn’t think it was because Warren didn’t know or because Warren wanted things the way they were.

Warren was willing to accept whatever they did to him as the price of having family. It was fucked up, but Warren hadn’t gotten less crazy over the years.

Zach took Warren down to one of the storage vaults. Them being soundproof was secondary to their purpose which was storing Ethan’s microfilm. Zach had planned big when they expanded the island, and he’d assumed that, somewhere down the road, they’d be wanting a lot more space than Ethan had asked for. Zach hadn’t wanted to have to renovate repeatedly.

“Nobody comes down here,” Zach told Warren. “The kids did, during the first year or two, just because it was new, but there’s nothing here. They can find privacy in more comfortable places.”

Warren didn’t say anything. He also didn’t look at Zach.

“You’re going to have to talk eventually.”

“I’ll only say the wrong thing.” Warren sounded resigned.

“And then what?” Zach wondered what the hell Warren thought was coming. “It’s you and me right now. I’m sure Magenta will look in later on, but I’m the one who _glows_.” He probably could beat the shit out of Warren even if Warren resisted because Warren had never had to fight without his powers before, but-- “Nothing I can do to you is even on the same map as what Layla can.”

“You’re thinking,” Warren said, “that what the others will do if I fight you isn’t any worse than what they’ll do anyway.”

Zach shrugged. “Next room on the left. I didn’t bring you down here to give you a free shot at me. I’m not making your decisions, but that one would be damned stupid.”

Warren opened the door Zach had indicated and stopped in the doorway. He squared his shoulders and took a deep breath then went inside.

Zach followed. He set his bag down just inside the door.

The room was as empty as most of the others down here, just a large box with a hard floor and a bathroom cubicle. The architects had given Zach shit about wanting a toilet and a sink attached to each room, but he’d been thinking about horny teenagers and drunk teenagers and teenagers in general.

“Strip,” Zach said.

If Warren hesitated, it wasn’t perceptible to Zach. In less than a minute, Warren was naked and kneeling on the floor in the center of the room. He looked up at Zach for a moment before fixing his eyes on the textured blue tile.

Zach studied Warren, letting himself admire the other man’s body. Then, Zach picked up Warren’s clothes and tossed them out the door. He shut the door, crossed the room, and sat down on the floor with his back against the wall.

Warren started slightly. Whatever he’d expected, it hadn’t been that.

Zach smiled. “I think each of us had different fantasies about what to do with you. Mine… I just wanted you to be afraid. I wanted you to know what it was like to be trapped and helpless. I’d say that I have that now except I don’t think you actually know it. You’re putting it aside, walling it off, the way you always do with thoughts that will break you.” Zach offered Warren a smile with fangs.

The wariness in Warren’s posture altered enough for Zach to be sure that Warren had realized that this was a threat he hadn’t foreseen.

Zach let that sit for almost three minutes. Then, he said, “The first time I kissed you, I had no fucking idea what would come after. No reason to think you’d be gentle or care about me being… okay… during or after. You could have done anything and told me I’d asked for it.” Zach looked at the ceiling. “It would have fit with the shit you’d been doing all along.”

Zach waited to see if Warren would respond. When Warren didn’t, Zach fixed his eyes on Warren’s face. “You cut down our options until that was the only way for us. You did it deliberately.”

“So I’m reaping what I sowed?”

Zach was almost certain that Warren was trying to make him lose his temper. “It’d be a lot easier for you if I just beat the shit out of you and fuck you, wouldn’t it? That wouldn’t touch the parts of yourself you care about.”

Warren turned his head so that he wasn’t looking at Zach. “I can’t stop you.” It was a flat statement. It was also a desperate plea.

“I want to,” Zach admitted. “I wish I didn’t, but I do, and I probably will. That’s just… not what today’s about.” He pointed at the bag he’d set down by the door. “There are some ampules in there and a syringe. Different drugs, different concentrations. All of them will affect your perceptions-- You’ll see things and hear things.” He could tell that he’d guessed right, that this was Warren’s true nightmare. “I’ll let you pick one. Maybe you’ll be lucky and get a low dose.” All of the ampules held the same drug at the same dose. Zach just thought that thinking there were differences would make Warren feel more responsible for what was going to happen to him.

Warren made a choked sound of protest and shook his head.

“Are you thinking that this is somehow a choice?”

Warren bowed his head. His next few breaths were slow and deliberate.

“Get the bag. Open it.”

Warren hesitated for a moment then crawled over to the bag and pulled it back to the center of the room. He lifted the flap.

“I’m being kind this time,” Zach said. “Anything tactile will be real. You’ll have that much.”

Warren put a tube of lubricant on the floor. He set a box next to it. He opened the box and looked at the contents. He hesitated then pulled out an ampule. “You’re going to fuck me while I hallucinate.”

“Would you rather I just leave you to it?” Zach pointedly looked around the empty room.

“No.” Warren shivered. “Please.” His hands shook as he pulled out the syringe and loaded it.

Zach was sure that Warren suspected that this wouldn’t be a one and done thing. At some point, Zach would leave Warren completely alone with the demons in his mind. “It doesn’t need a vein,” he told Warren. “You’ve got the healing so cleaning your skin matters less, but I’d still recommend it.”

Warren went still. “You want me to inject it.”

Zach raised his eyebrows. “Is there a reason you can’t?” He sat up straighter. “I will if you absolutely can’t, but… I won’t be pleased.”

Warren flinched, and he almost dropped the syringe. He set it on the floor and opened an alcohol swab. He wiped a small section of his left thigh four times then set down the swab and picked up the syringe. He fumbled a little getting the cap off the needle and hesitated for several seconds before forcing the needle into his leg. Once the plunger had depressed completely, Warren pulled the needle from his leg, capped the needle again, then set it on the floor.

“None of the others would think to do this,” Warren said.

Warren wasn’t wrong, so Zach only shrugged. After a moment, Zach stood. “Put everything but the lube back in the bag.”

Warren obeyed. Once he was done, he offered the bag to Zach.

Zach took it and put it outside the door. He took off his own clothing and set all of that outside the door, too. Then, he went and sat next to Warren. “It will take a little time,” he said. He put a hand on one side of Warren’s face and pressed lightly to let Warren know that he should turn.

Warren whimpered as they kissed.

Zach wondered if that was the drug working unexpectedly fast or if it was simply that Warren was afraid. They knew each other’s bodies well after twelve years of whatever the hell their relationship ought to be called, and they each touched the other in ways they knew would please. Zach kept his hands and mouth gentle and felt Warren relax a little.

They were about ten minutes in when Warren started reacting to things Zach couldn’t see or hear. After about a minute of that, Warren was clinging to Zach. “What I touch is real,” Warren murmured. He repeated it three times before he buried his head in Zach’s shoulder and started to cry.

Zach hadn’t expected Warren to dissolve so fast, so he wondered if Warren was trying to play him. Zach stroked Warren’s back anyway. For a moment, he considered not making this part sexual because he knew-- and so did Warren-- that it was an added layer of torture dressed up with something Warren needed.

Zach could be kinder if he wanted to. It was a choice, and he made himself look at that part because he wasn’t going to be Warren, not that way.

Half an hour after the injection, Zach had Warren on his back with his legs against his chest so that Zach could get at his ass more easily. Zach had his fingers inside Warren and was working his prostate while Warren begged something only he could see to go away and stop staring. 

Warren was both desperately aroused by what Zach was doing and desperately terrified of what he was seeing and hearing. As Zach had expected, Warren knew that he was crumbling and that he was going to admit things to himself that he’d worked to keep hidden. Warren hated himself for it but didn’t quite dare to hate Zach.

If Warren hated Zach, Zach might go away. Zach might leave Warren alone with his nightmares.

Zach wouldn’t-- this time-- because Warren had been gentle that first time and every time after. Zach wouldn’t because Warren had understood what Layla might become and not tried to prevent it by killing her or breaking her. Zach wouldn’t because Warren hadn’t ever made Magenta kiss him.

Next time, Zach would leave because Warren actually had done some unforgivable things. Warren admitted to some of them, but most of them were things he’d convinced himself weren’t his choice or were all right because nobody’d really been hurt.

Warren was going to have a while before Zach brought him back here, though, because Zach thought that knowing it was coming would be harder for Warren than actually enduring it.


	10. Warren 4: Rain in a Basin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warren had broken Zach and Ethan. Layla and Magenta had broken themselves. Everyone on Sky High at the time-- those not infants, at least-- had noticed what happened to Ethan. Only the five of them had recognized the price Magenta was paying or noticed that Layla was growing into something utterly terrifying.
> 
> None of them had realized how badly Warren had broken Zach. Even Zach hadn’t. Zach trusting Layla looked like a celebratory meal with Zach’s family and most of Ethan’s in unwilling attendance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Basho (translated by David Young).
> 
> Trauma. Familial kidnapping. Guilt and regret but no actual repentance.
> 
> I hadn't found this particular bit of Zach's story when I wrote "Locked with a Twisted Key," so maybe that Zach didn't abduct his family and Ethan's in order to protect them. And maybe he did and just didn't consider it at all while talking to Windy.
> 
> These characters are all so very, very, very messed up.

Warren had broken Zach and Ethan. Layla and Magenta had broken themselves. Everyone on Sky High at the time-- those not infants, at least-- had noticed what happened to Ethan. Only the five of them had recognized the price Magenta was paying or noticed that Layla was growing into something utterly terrifying.

None of them had realized how badly Warren had broken Zach. Even Zach hadn’t. Zach trusting Layla looked like a celebratory meal with Zach’s family and most of Ethan’s in attendance.

Not with Layla’s because no one had seen Gaia-- Debra Williams-- since Jim Williams died three years earlier. 

Warren had let Layla go to the funeral. He’d more than half-hoped that she wouldn’t come back, but he’d also known that she would.

Warren was pretty sure that none of Zach’s dinner guests had been given the option of staying groundside. The fact that Ethan’s older sister, Trish, had shot two of Zach’s people and disappeared rather than accompany them to Sky High supported that interpretation. Trish taught third grade. Trish owned a house in the town where she worked. If Trish ran, it was because she knew this wasn’t a one and done sort of threat. If Trish ran, she was leaving her entire life behind.

Ethan asked Zach and Layla not to look for Trish. Zach did it anyway; he just didn’t say anything when his people couldn’t find her. Layla probably didn’t even have to look, but she didn’t tell anyone where Trish was hiding. If Zach’s people couldn’t find her, probably no one else would either.

Zach’s sisters tried to leave the day after the happy reunion. Naomi was nineteen, old enough to notice and to understand that their parents were only pretending that everything was normal. She and Sarah tried to steal a bus.

They weren’t met with any sort of threat or ultimatum, just a very bland woman who explained that, given two dozen twelve-year-olds, the buses were disabled when not actively in use. It wasn’t even a lie. It had been a year since the last attempted joyride because Zach had removed a couple of crucial and easily stored bits from each bus so that none of them would start without someone signing those items out from Zach’s safe.

Zach would certainly arrange for someone to take his sisters out for an excursion if they wanted to fly. He might even have someone teach them how the buses worked. He just wasn’t letting them go downside and into the line of fire. Zach wanted them to be happy, but he wanted them safe even more.

It was what Warren would have done in Zach’s situation. Everyone but Zach understood that.

Zach told his parents and Ethan’s that he could build a second aerial island, a third and a fourth even, given time and resources. They wouldn’t be trapped on Sky High. “Groundside will be safe in a few years. Building a nice place to live down there will be possible. Guarding it will be harder, but by then, we’ll be able to do that.”

None of the parents looked convinced.

Neither Zach nor Ethan had been willing to bring their families to Sky High while Warren Battle was officially in charge. Warren didn’t think that either man had thought Warren would harm their loved ones.

They hadn’t wanted their families to see them serving Warren. Serving Layla-- well, Warren would serve Layla and the rest of them. The other four were a unit. Wanted to be a unit. 

Layla would share every power she could with them, and they would accept because not one of them would leave any of the others alone.

Keeping bus parts locked up was only going to hold until one of the Homecoming kids came into powers that would let them open the safe, but Warren really wished he’d thought of it right after Homecoming. He might have been able to avoid locking his prisoners in for so long. Layla might not have started down the road to whatever she had become.

Things might be different. Better. None of them would ever have considered ‘Natural Causes’ as a name for Layla. They wouldn’t have had to.

Warren could take a bus and leave now. Probably. 

Zach had left him access to that safe and had very deliberately pointed out the fact of it. 

Warren wasn’t sure if Zach hoped Warren would run or not. Zach understood how vulnerable Warren was to a mindfuck, so Warren wasn’t sure if running would be real escape or if Zach wanted to hunt him. Both seemed possible.

And the other three might not agree on what they wanted Warren to do. None of them were going to protect him from any of the others, not for his sake. They might never again admit that Warren was human.

Zach wouldn’t let Warren go if even one of the others wanted to keep him, and Zach was having a hell of a good time torturing Warren, so Zach probably just wanted to hunt Warren.

Warren would be okay with that. He had to be.

Even if his former sidekicks were willing to let him go, Warren really had no idea how to survive downside, with or without powers, and he didn’t see the point. Everything that he gave a damn about was on Sky High. If they ever kicked him out, he’d probably start destroying whatever was around him in hopes that they’d come back for him. He would rather be not-human with them than dead and rather be dead than groundside-- or anywhere else-- without them. 

Staying, no matter what came of it, would be better than running and having them let him go. 

Magenta and Ethan were both capable of walking away from Warren. They just wouldn’t because Zach and Layla couldn’t, not now and maybe not ever. Magenta was assuming not ever. That was why her first child would be Warren’s. Magenta knew that that child would be an anchor to keep Warren’s interests aligned with hers and therefore with Layla’s and Ethan’s and Zach’s. She also knew that her lovers would trust Warren’s devotion to his child more than they trusted Warren’s devotion to them.

Warren hadn’t expected Magenta to be the kind one. Or the one to understand that what they did-- to him or in general-- was only going to matter for its effect on the four of them and on the kids.

Magenta’d said once that she was the slave at Warren’s Triumph, the one tasked with whispering reminders of his mortality at the point when he was most at risk of forgetting it. Warren was pretty sure that she was doing something similar but subtler for Zach and Layla and even, occasionally, for Ethan. She’d only let them go so far.

She’d been willing to tell Warren that he was an asshole. She was willing to meet Ethan’s eyes and shake her head or even tell him to stop. Ethan would listen to that. Zach and Layla-- They hadn’t noticed, but sometimes she simply didn’t let them start at all. She’d mention something more important, more urgent, more fun for her and them. 

She wasn’t judging them. She wasn’t protecting Warren. She just wasn’t going to let either Zach or Layla tip over into obsession. She also wasn’t going to let them realize she was doing it.

Warren had never figured out how to get Magenta to love him anywhere near as much as that. He’d also never figured out how to persuade Layla to forgive or how to make Ethan forget. He’d known those were problems. He’d just thought that he’d gotten things right with Zach because Zach had been easy, textbook Stockholm.

Zach was as angry at himself for breaking as he was at Warren for breaking him. Warren should have remembered how much he’d wanted his mother to die and why. Warren should have realized that Zach wouldn’t be less angry simply because he’d gone down without a whimper.

Figuring out that he’d fucked that up, too, hurt Warren more than anything Zach had done or might yet decide to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I considered closing with another Layla POV chapter, but I think that would have had to focus outward and away from Sky High which didn't fit the rather claustrophobic inward focus of everything else. 
> 
> I predict that they'll have a pretty good go at conquering the world in the name of protecting the things they care about. If they fail, it won't be because they lack power but only because the world is actually pretty damned big.
> 
> Warren will remain part of the group but never in the way that he really wants, never with trust and affection or with anything like balance. He just believes he won't find anything closer if he leaves. He's probably right because I don't think he'd have the patience or the space to learn how to interact with other people in anything resembling a healthy way.


End file.
